


Sunrise, Sunset (Or How Do You Say Sod Off In Tevinter?)

by AkiDragonwings



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Action/Adventure, Erotica, F/M, Humor, Psychology, Romance, Sarcasm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:37:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 407,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2348693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkiDragonwings/pseuds/AkiDragonwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing". Hawke's a mage in deep denial. She had trained all her life in the arts of the sword, but cruelly realizes through the years she has to accept her magic and use it. Imagine Fenris's confusion, as they come more to disagree to agree - His voice, the very sound of rolling eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Swooping Is Bad (Checking For Traps)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a humor and adventure-infused story. There's going to be a lot of sarcasm, deep discussions, psychological insight, epic battle strategies. A slowly forming friendship romance - not like SUPER slow, I'm NOT going to bore you.
> 
> \- I always STRESS that you can skip whatever part or chapter that does NOT interest you. Somewhere in the first 30- something chapter numbers there's a purely invented quest with Zevran in Antiva. Don't care about action in-between the humor and whatnot, DO SKIP!
> 
> BUT TO HELP THOSE WHO WANT TO SKIP BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHY:
> 
> \- Act 1: Ch.1 - 6/7
> 
> \- Deep Roads (new stuff): Ch. 8-11
> 
> \- Time before Act 2: Ch. 12 til 42. HERE: Ch.12 -23 is Kirkwall stuff (yes has romance in it, stop it). from 23 on decribes the road to Antiva and epic and fun stuff until Chapter 42 (yeah, it's fun, there's romance too, stop it).
> 
> \- Act 2: Ch. 42 - then on.
> 
> -Very short monologue at first, you can skip right to the dialogue. It goes to third person from there. Enjoy!
> 
> -Enjoy, review, spit on me, revile me, I welcome it all; I love you all regardless.

**Sunset, The Hanged Man**

Father used to say that in difficulty lies opportunity, and if there's none to meet the eye, all the more valuable the opportunity gets. Every moment and action exist backed up by a force more powerful than any superhuman abilities one knows (I guess he meant magic there) or can imagine, the core of it lying in the primal energy of love. Hate is as much love as it can get too, indifference was the actual counterpart. Ignorance was the path carved in seemingly meaningless frustrations and questions like "Why is this happening?" while looking too close to actually see. At the expense of others, your flame seems to burst but it actually just sparks on some occasions and you yourself throw water at it thinking it is fuel, and then you question… but you don't ask the right one.

Don't waste your days trying to find the good things in your life by counting and comparing the stars, else you'll miss the moon right above your head. We've all been manipulating that energy that lives in and outside of us, getting in and getting out, either more pure or more corrupted, but the important part was that each speck caused ripples and in turn each ripple caused another and the choice was ours in terms of what kind of energy we send away into the world that affects everything and everyone else.

That was all that mattered at the end of the day, and of the world. But the purpose of it, the functionality of such natural laws is distinctive and blurred by the experience of life itself, the actual living and manipulating of that mighty energy always depending on the offsprings of being alive - emotions, in short, there is a catch. Of course there's a catch, life is a catch; I suggest you catch it while you can, the Flemeth witch said to Hawke when she saved them no more than a year ago. Well, when she put it that way… "Bet you 50 silvers Bianca can shoot the first arrow right into the viscount's portret's nose? Hawke! Uh,... Hawke?"

"Oh leave my sister to brood on her eggs; when she spaces out like that and you go near her she flips out and you, the concerned well-intentioned friend, meets the end of her reflexes; as in getting your ass kicked, or worse, fried," Carver said to Varric while nursing his beer and shaking his head.

Varric raised his right eyebrow in disbelief and gazed at Hawke, who was sitting with her arms on the table, seeming more like one of those holy statues of Andraste in deep meditation than the young, cocksure and funny woman who drank the whole pint like a mighty tiger not five minutes before. In the weeks he had known her, he had seen the living proof of all the rumors about her in the underworld; she kept cool and resisted under pressure, she mastered the battlefield and controlled the crowd, whirlwound her blade when she got cornered and dove forward to defend others instead of keeping to her business and putting on a show. Well, she inevitably put on a show. Where she learned how to both strike with might and flex speedattack, not to mention jump on enemies, duck, pummel strike and form barriers with her sword while still throwing others, Maker only knew. He was no stranger to being a scrapper, his years of forming tactics ensured him and Bianca never to misfire while still being able to deflect attacks, but while Hawke was a fearsome damager, crowd control was the first thing she aimed to take care of; she'd make a quick unexpected move on the enemy at first and use it to her advantage to control the battle from there on, shouting directions at her companions and jumping anyone who came near the weaker ones. Taunting was her favorite way to mock people and assert herself, not just in combat, but also in conversations, be they friendly or the old let's-talk-before-I-kill-you-anyway.

He still wasn't sure if the way she flipped people off with her sarcastic relaxed remarks made them see her as an intimidating enemy or a lowlife jester. His train of witty thought ended there, as he started picturing Hawke with a buffoon's hat on her head juggling knives. Maybe pints though, she might be an angry drunk.

"What?" Hawke suddenly asked grumpily and her eyes rose.

"Another drink?" Varric asked awkwardly.

"If I were sitting in front of her instead of you Varric, I'd have said she was cupping my breasts with her mind," Isabela said with a laugh.

Hawke broke into laughter. "If you were sitting in front of me, Isabela, I'd stare at your chin piercing and wonder about telekinatically moving it to your lips, where they'd do you more credit."

Mischief aside, perhaps honesty was what Isabela spewed with such charming radiance, "So you could feel it while biting my lips when I take advantage you after the next three pints?"

"So it would saw them shut," Hawke muttered, seeming bitter, but then she grinned at the pirate and retook her easygoing bright face that just screamed I'm making fun of you.

"Nothing's gonna saw this mouth shut, honey, not even your force magic," Isabela laughed and took a sip from her pint. Ah right, how could she forget. She knew her secret all too well. She wondered from who exactly... Carver in a fit of horny drive or Varric in a fit of over the hill dramatic storytelling mode.

Ah, whatever. What did it matter now anyway. She rubbed her eyes nonchalantly and inhaled; deeply unimpressed she seemed. "If I ever get a blow to the head and sacrifice my predicament to the flame, sure, the most important thing that my incredibly tricky dangerous magic will have a use for is sawing a drunken wench's mouth shut. "

Varric had been keeping himself from asking Hawke for the reason why if she had already been putting on a heck of a show in combat, she wouldn't have made it a magic show too. Sure, he saw her throw a fireball once or twice to distract enemies, but maybe his eyes were getting older and she actually just used explosives. After all, she kept a bunch of them in her purse dangling up and down ready to burst. At first, he thought Athenril was bullshitting him about Hawke being a mage, the girl fought, acted and looked nothing like one. Maybe the sword was actually some twisted innovation of a staff and she wasn't actually that strong. But no lightning? No fireworks? No stonefist to the head or gliphs on the ground? Just swooping, a whole lotta swooping.  
There was definitely a story behind this, but knowing Hawke, he'd have to take his good time getting into her good graces and making her talk; pints didn't work, that was for sure. She'd get drunk and talk about blade sharpening or ask weird questions like "Well, I've never been to Seheron, so I wouldn't know, but don't you ever wonder what a giraffe is like if it's sick? How does it even, you know, throw up?". If Varric knew how to do something with a master's tact, other than handling Bianca and charming people, it was being patient and letting things go their natural way, until some unexpected shit happens and things get leaked. Swooping was not the answer in this scenario, no, swooping was bad. There was always space for little mistakes, speech errors or wrongful grabbing of an object, moments in which the person acted a little differently than their general attitude, it was all there, he just had to wait, in the shadows, notice the vulnerable spot and strike. Or in this case, go like "Aha!".

"If she ever started using that magic, she'd probably use it to make Junior here stop hitting his head with his own pommel while we're at it," Varric said and laughed.

"Maker I hate you dwarf," Carver muttered while crossing his arms.

"If I ever started using it, Varric, you'd be my bitch by now. You can kiss Bianca goodbye, because the only hair she's gonna want is the shiny red kind," Hawke said with a devious grin. They had a mutual understanding, that these were perfectly harmless jokes.

Varric raised an eyebrow.

"On my head, Varric, I don't have chest hair," Hawke rolled her eyes, but then stroke a mischievous grin "... Or do I?"

He shook his head as though he was a father appalled by a daughter growing up. "I don't know if I'm more intrigued by the sudden magic talk, in which you've already outlined some very questionable and creepy hints by the way, or by you having or not having chest hair. Andraste's tits, and red chest hair for all it's worth."

Hawke frowned, looked down and smirked. "Look, I'm a former blood mage plagued by a guilty conscience of all the kittens and virgins I've sacrificed to augment by powers and now I'm seeking atonement by swearing off magic and defending innocents with a greatsword. The greatsword is a symbol of my vow, but also of my punishment; getting humpback with every moment I carry my cross through the world. Such is my plight, and well-met will be my death. That is when the Maker has judged that I've paid my debt in full to him, every innocent I help for every drop of blood I took away from his children."

"Even I can't come up with that kind of bullshit," Varric mused in amazement. "I think red chest hair would be enough of a punishment on a woman like you"

"And what is a woman like me exactly?", Hawke asked raising an eyebrow and smiling at Varric.

"Right now, a grumpy drunk and soon to be left alone by the nosy charming dwarf before he gets suckerpunched, I think," Varric said charmingly, raising his arms in the air as a sign of peace.

Hawke rolled her eyes joyfully and grinned. "You should see me when I'm actually drunk. You'll know it. This is just the old buzz. And since when am I grumpy?"

"You were staring at the table like it ate your whole family and you were deciding exactly how to torture it into a graphic confession before you smashed it mercilessly and I had to put it on my tab," Varric made fun of Hawke, trying to ease her off.

She sighed. "What would I do without my trusty dwarf? You always know what to say just at end to make people feel better"

"That's me, I'm useful that way. What do you say, another pint? I'm buying," Varric said, grinning, knowing Hawke would notice his last sentence as testament to her previous remark.

"As much as I like feeling so warm and loved, I think I'll hold you on that pint for tomorrow, after we get those blighted Grey Warden maps. I'm heading home"

"Oh, leaving so early for your beauty sleep?," Carver mocked Hawke with the ever-lasting arrogant smirk.

"You should try it sometime," his sister smiled, sizing him up. "But no, you'd rather sleep piss drunk and fainted on a table and maybe in a debt of tens of sovereigns after you lose at Wicked Grace." She shrugged nonchalantly. "You've made your bed, as they say."

"Is that a quote from the Lectures of the Guild of the Migthty Warrior-Mages?" Carver asked mockingly. He poked once, she poked back, he poked twice, she beat him with a bat. Poked another few times and she'd bite him straight. But not tonight. Hawke rose and looked away, like she didn't even hear him.

"Yes," she said, with a sarcastic and cocky tone.

Right. And there it was. At least she didn't bite him.

"Good night, Varric, I hope you get some sleep despite the bestial moaning that will be coming from Isabela's room tonight while she pounds a barrel mistaking it for a man." Varric and Isabela laughed and wished her a good night sleep. Then she looked at Carver. She seemed bitter, why was that? "Carver," she stated calmly, nodding in a salute.

Once Hawke got out of the Hanged Man and gained a bit of control over her walking, she orientated herself to the slums. But she didn't really want to go home nor did she want to sleep. In turn, she wanted to get out of the city and run along the paths of Sundermount and camp there, just for one day, just to remember how a tree smelled like, for Maker's sake. Anything short of that was not going to satiate her, not even the Deep Roads expedition, unless there were darkspawn trees growing there. Hah, darkspawn trees, good one… Darkspawn trees? Maker's breath, my jokes are coming out of my ass now. I should have stopped at pint number three.

She took a detour into the market place in Lowtown to stall. Maybe she would even bump into Aveline while on patrol and blow off some steam cutting dog lords and street thugs. But there was no Aveline and no dog lords. Shit, it's almost too quiet tonight. Should I just walk or go back? She looked behind her, the path that led to the slums and the sudden smell of old cheese in Gamlen's room hit her like a brick. Forward.

She swayed onwards trying to walk as straight as possible, but she tipped off a bit from her straight line of pace to the right and the metal spikes on her shoulder pad creaked as they brushed against one of the walls on the street and she heard someone flip and scream.

A dwarf was standing not too far from her near the weaponsmithy stand, working on something in his small caravan before she gave away her position with the squeaky noise of the spiky shoulder pad that bumped into the wall, making him flip his shit.

"Sweet mother of Partha, you can't just run into somebody like that", the startled dwarf said and panted. He looked like he was going to stick his head into the ground like an ostrich.

"Did you think I was going to attack you?" Hawke asked the dwarf, trying to restrain from laughing.

This dwarf was just hanging around alone at night, unguarded and unarmed, minding his own business, but jumped at the softest sound? He was terrified. If Hawke's head would have been clearer, she would've smelled a trap. She did think of that, but forgot about it a second later, getting distracted by the excruciating ball of anxiety that stood in front of her.

"My apologies human… I haven't been on the Surface for long. I keep thinking I'll fall into all that sky up there any minute. M-my n-name is Anso."

"Anso? I think I know that name… uh, Anso, Anso… well, my bell isn't ringing, but my ears are listening. Aren't you a little uh, very poorly prepared to just sit around your skirts in the dark in an open field? Don't get me wrong, I admire your sense of stone or stoned courage or whatever you dwarves call it when you feel inspired to be led by intuition rather than reason and then save the world at the last minute, but I highly doubt that applies to Lowtown, or Kirkwall, or the Surface, really. Should I accompany you out of this hole? Give you directions? I don't bite," Hawke said smiling, surprised that she said all that in one breath.

"No, that's fine, I appreciate the thought," Anso said, shuddering and looking away. He placed one hand onto his other arm as though it was the only pole of balance in the world.

"You still think I'm going to attack you? Rob you? Maybe I should slow down and build up some trust." She gestured cockily. "My name is Hawke, pleased to meet you. How are you this evening?"

Anso arched an eyebrow. "Hawke? Then aren't you the one who used to work for Athenril? She said she would direct a human with this name to me for a job, actually."

"Maybe that's how I know your name," she said with an analyzing frown. Raising an eyebrow, she started to recall. "I did receive a letter this morning, but I didn't have time to read it properly. My day schedule was already full with work."

"Well luck might just be my strong feature, because you couldn't have picked a better time to show, actually. This is a night job and a simple one, i-if you're interested," Anso said in a shaky voice looking up at Hawke. Maker, if I scratch my nose he'll flinch and scream, won't he?

"Night jobs are my favorite. Especially when they're given by lone dwarves haunting the streets and jumping at their own shadow. There's always a catch when I meet one of those," Hawke said, becoming snarky and trying not to let the weariness take over. She kept her drunken smile. He couldn't hae known that was different from her usual sober smile anyway.

"I-I need help rather badly, in fact," Anso said in a controlled tone, half-desperate to deny. "Some product of mine has been… misplaced. The men who were supposed to deliver it decided not to. If you retrieve my property I could reward you handsomely."

"And just what did these men steal?" Hawke asked nonchalantly.

"D-did I say steal? I don't know if I would go that far. They seemed like perfectly reasonable smugglers," he said sarcastically. "They smiled and everything. The goods a-are … valuable, however… and illegal. My client wants them very, very badly." Ah there it was. Stupid Templars. Maker's soggy testicles, how incredibly devoid of pride this dwarf us, even in his position. "The gentlemen stored it into a little hobble in the Alienage," Anso said nervously, stuttering, calculating every word.

"A dwarf, a shady product, perfectly reasonable smugglers, a chest in the Alienage… and nightfall". If Hawke weren't drunk, she'd have sorted this all out in a second instead of taking all that time to bullshit the dwarf and think aloud to make a sense of it. "I'd bet your reward you're smuggling lyrium to the templars. No wait…" she stopped, raising her index finger up to focus, "I take that back, I'm not betting well-earned future money on this. You dwarves just ask for it, don't you". I'm getting too used to placing useless bets with Varric. "But it is lyrium, isn't it?"

"Sh-sht, by the Paragons, not so loud! My word, I'm not cut out for this. I should have taken that job sweeping stables like Mother insisted." he said sorrowfully, suddenly realizing the irony in his life evaluation.

"I'll get it for you.," she said, rather unbalanced in her posture. Swaying and stumbling on her feet aside, she remained in her couldn't-care-less posture. She beckoned for an answer like a true general. "Two questions, before I move, though. One: are you politely trying to imply I should kill them?"

"N-no! Well, yes, if you circumstances force you to kill them..." Anso contemplated in make-believe, then shrugged innocently, "then I guess it can't be avoided."

"Understood, Sir Dwarf. I will try to avoid it, mind you," Hawke said smiling and then giggled, imagining Anso searching for a noble's lost jewelry through horse feces and jumping every time the animal moved a leg. He'll only take that kind of job if the horse shits lyrium and he can sell it just as well to numskull templars.

Anso looked at Hawke waiting for something. She wasn't getting it.

"What?"

"What was the other question?"

Hawke seemed to ponder on something for a while. Her eyes rose decisively, "Oh, right, I'm going to scratch my nose now, would you please sit tight and trust that I won't turn into a dragon or something?"

Anso scratched his head, seeming all the more regretful now that he had chosen this woman for the job. "R-right. Good luck, human. May the Stone be with you."

"I can't wait to get stoned," Hawke laughed while already walking towards the slums.

"I-i…Oh, sweet mother of Partha, she's going to get killed," Anso said to himself.

* * *

 

**Nightfall, Outside the Alienage**

Even in her state, Hawke operated within reason. There couldn't have been more than six or seven smugglers shacked up in a hobble, since no one was outside in the Alienage. And what was the worst case scenario? Lyrium smugglers were just like poor mercenaries, they lacked skill both in individual and in team fights, they were more than likely poorly armoured and equipped with daggers and maybe some tar bombs or debilitating poisons, which she knew how to avoid all too well. Their number could have been a strong advantage, had she not have a greatsword to throw them all to the ground at once with. Lastly, they wouldn't be expecting a single and well-equipped woman to show up and stir up trouble, that was the thing that would sweep them off their feet, if that was the case. Maybe there wasn't anybody inside and she would just play delivery-man. Now that's always fun, why do I never do that?

She checked for traps first. Always check for traps if you wanna keep your boots, Varric used to warn her. After feeling the explosives in her pocket, she reached for her sword and entered the house.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Old building nearby the Alienage**

Fenris gripped the pummel of his sword as the footsteps became louder beyond the door. The building he hid in was old and forgotten, an abandoned slave compound no doubt. The disgust in his bones creaked, ignoring his growling stomach, now immune to any desire to eat. Dirty walls adorned with rusty chains meter-by-metre, thumbscrews used to crush slaves' fingers if they didn't work hard enough and what could only look like an old torture rack turned into a table. "Get up, slave. Less moping, more fighting", "Kill them, kill them all!" "Come now, Fenris, we have guests for you to... entertain"

"You wonder why he feeds you rotten limes and peas? No? They look just like your elven eyes. One day you might just be given one of these slaves' eyes and you wouldn't know the difference"

"Is that a blank stare, Little Fenris, do you want to strangle me right now? Plunge your fists into my heart? But you can't, can you? Even if you did have the guts, the chain would snap your neck back. Fitting, don't you agree, little wolf? Ahahaha"

The falgard* offered his knowledge of this place as it was the highest building in Lowtown and the last floor was long abandoned. A huge iron bell was squeezed above that space, but nobody beat at it for years, since one of them hung lose and fell, almost killing the crowd on the street. He rose from the floor and raised his sword when the door opened.  
"Aah, sweet MOTHER of Partha, you people just can't give me a break, can you?", Anso cried and put his hands on his face, trying to defend himself.

"I'm sorry, I'm too used to preparing for an ambush. I start to see hostility everywhere," Fenris apologized to the helpful dwarf, placing his sword back into its holder against his back.

"I've found someone willing to be hired," Anso said in an uneasy, unconvinced voice. He gestured. "The human is already heading to the Alienage, I suggest you hurry now. And be careful, I still haven't spotted any Tevinter armory about."

Fenris nodded chivalrously. "Thank you," he said in a rush, then a force stopped him in place. "You said only one human?"

Anso scratched his head. "That one's a nutcase, I tell you. But I don't know, maybe Hawke went for reinforcements"

"If you sent this Hawke to their death, it's on your head. What did you even say the job was?" Fenris asked angrily. He shook his head and sighed. There was no time for trivialities. "Ah, nevermind, benefaris."

"Don't thank me, serah, I do owe you my life after a-"

But the elf had already vanished into the dark.

"May the Stone guide you," Anso said almost in a faint whisper, looking at the door harboring only empty darkness beyond its way.

(*Falgard = dwarf in Tevinter)

Fenris got to the ground floor and stopped to analyze the field through a remote crack in the wall. The street was quiet and empty, but he could hear swords weaving and a lot of screaming. He moved to a wider part of the crack and could spot the ground of the Alienage full of blood and a red-headed figure circling the Vhenadahl chased by the Tevinter bounty hunters. After the figure tired them off with a few circles, it quickly paced backwards and scythed into the group and whirlwound, then circled the tree again. What kind of crazy man went there alone, especially someone who was clearly not well-equipped, was shorter than most human men and much skinnier. He had to save the poor bastard.

He rushed into the shadows of the streets and hid when other Tevinter soldiers came from the market area.

It was quiet, too quiet. The apparent leader of the group ordered what seemed to be a lieutenant to stand watch with the others while he paced towards the Alienage. He could hear a sword plunge right through heavy armor and something explode, a man gasping before his death.

Venhedis, too late. He couldn't take it. He ran for it. He went into lyrium haze and faded through them, throwing most of them meters away into the sharp iron spikes on the edges of the street (that for some reason the incompetent viscount of this filthy city didn't order to get removed). He shoved his fist into a remaining soldier's chest and partly solidified it, crushing his insides and with the other arm he pierced his sword through the last one standing. He calculated every move and fought with ease through these situations usually, not even making a sound.

"Lieutenant, I want everyone in the clearing, now!" he heard, and he pushed the still standing but inevitably dying soldier towards the stairs that led to the Alienage. The Tevinter muttered something like captain and fell to his death. He walked slowly now, since there was clearly only the leader left, and he'd give him a piece of his mind before making him beg for death.

"Your men are dead and your trap has failed," he said in a perfect tone of content, but...

… Two of them. No, one Tevinter soldier and a woman standing behind him with with a full frown and full fists, ready to move, but petrified in the process by the unexpected turn of events.

Will wonders never cease. He assumed the woman raising an eyebrow while watching him was telling herself the same thing.

He walked past the Tevinter, appearing as calm as one could be. In truth, he was tired and angry. The last time he encountered bounty hunters in such numbers was a few months before up north. He had gotten cornered and barely survived. For all his abilities, even the lyrium markings, he was still only one man. A constant one-man army isn't much of an army, especially when one has to work twice as hard to move through the crowd unnoticed and repeatedly starve oneself for days on end to spare the little food and water one could get. Sure, stealing was never difficult - he'd wrap himself with two layers of old cloth and lyrium-snitch the purse away - but the only time he didn't feel dirty and no better than the people who put him in this position was the few and short-lived moments in which he felt the taste of fresh food and the cold and soft threads of water dancing in his mouth. What followed after was nothing short from disgust, more for himself than anyone else.

He'd seen noblemen snatch both young elves as well as humans for their weekly slumber parties, servants working and being treated like slaves, men being ripped off by greedy merchants, commoners being denied their rights to their own lands, rendered unable to provide for their families, he'd seen countless murders and men locked up for the slightest defiances. He could only run and not look back, not because it would have been a sign of weakness, but it wasn't far from that either. He'd die inside every time he allowed himself to watch and be filled by the pain of these injustices, he'd die inside because he could do nothing about it, yet he was the victim of such a one and he should have retaliated.

If he could have sat in one place and moved freely, he would have been there where his presence could have influenced for the better, but, no, he had to run for his own life's sake. Survival of the fittest, nothing more, nothing less. He was fooling himself; that line hadn't given him comfort for a year, if not two. He couldn't even tell time anymore. He couldn't keep a calendar. Sometimes he'd walk to neutral figures and ask them what day and month it was and he'd realize he had ceased to understand what the dates meant at all. He'd know only daylight and nighttime, sunrise and sunset. The sun would rise, he'd feel it against his skin for a few moments, then get back to the eternal vigilance. The sun would set, he'd have to hide.

He felt a sudden release of tension in his chest when he learned that the sound of that man in heavy armour dying was misdirection, for the poor bastard he thought he drove to his own death was not a he at all, and it was she who plunged the sword in the other's body. How she managed to survive was inexplicable; it remained to be seen. He didn't look the Tevinter sack of filth, but kept speaking:

"I suggest running to your master while you can." Ah, would it not for this dire situation, this was certainly the case to break in laughter at himself. Either his choice of words were poor from the sleep deprivation or was he actually implying he'd show this man mercy? He was not the head of of it all, though, he was not Danarius, nor any other magister, he was just a soldier following orders blindly.

Maybe he would have, but he next choice of words the soldier used set the flag in place. "You are going nowhere, slave." T

That was it. That word was all it took. He grabbed the captain's arm, pulled it away from his shoulder and drove his clawed gauntlet into the man's heart. He turned his back and didn't even look at the corpse. "I am not a slave," he muttered decisively, not sure if he said to himself or to the woman in front of him.

Ah, yes. The woman.

The burning flow of anger suddenly froze and bits and pieces of the current situation, details he thought about didn't actually have time to analyze or understand, they all darted into his head and jolted him. What was he going to say to this witness who he also tricked and almost got killed? How was she even alive; there were roughly two dozen corpses on the ground. Why was her hair so red, did she stick her head into the core of the bloodbath? What was in the chest? Why wasn't she flipping out, attacking him or at least, thanking him? Right, thanking. He should be apologizing, not getting gratitude. Too much information was pounding on his head.

"I apologize," Fenris said courteously, keeping a neutral tone in his voice. "When I asked Anso to provide a distraction for the hunters, I had no idea they'd be so … numerous. But I see you've had little difficulty in terminating them without my intervention," he said, turning his back on her. He wasn't used to looking people in the eye, explain, let alone state facts that sounded like compliments because of her being female...and she was eyeing him with spears.

There, he did say it. The apology meant nothing compared to her own life, but at lea-

"You were responsible for this?" Hawke asked just as calmly, all of it now sinking in, just how easy the job sounded, why the chest was empty, why Anso was more than just anxious about falling into the sky.

"I am the reason you're here, yes," Fenris replied nonchalantly."These men were Imperial bounty hunters, seeking to recover a magister's lost property - namely myself." he said with a both disgusted and mocking expression. "Crude as their methods were, I could not face them alone. Thankfully, Anso chose wisely".

Right, it's just that simple. One slave escapes and the whole Imperium goes after him as if he's the best shoe shiner in a thousand mile radius. This is either another trick or I'm meeting someone crazier than myself. And then it hit her, she forgot what just happened in front her eyes just a minute ago - the elf randomly swooping in covered in white yet burn-like markings, lighting them in a blue glow and then, as if he were a ghost, crushed the man's insides. What had just happened there, she had felt a shock or a pressure or something in that moment, now that she thought about it and then it was all become a blur for two seconds. Right, I'm drunk. I forgot that because I'm drunk I forget what's happening. And now I forgot my train of thought… white hair, black feathers in his gauntlets, nice legs, markin- yes, the markings.

"That seems like a lot of effort to find one slave," Hawke stated suspiciously.

"It is", Fenris replied shortly.

"But you're no ordinary slave, are you?" she said, pointing at his arms.

He looked down upon them as if he forgot he had even had them.

"Oh, yes, I imagine I must look strange to you." This conversation was harder than the combat itself; never in his three years on the run did he feel obligated to explain himself.

"Not really," she said with a nonchalant shrug. "I'm more confused about why you're grizzled at your age than what those markings are." He arched an eyebrow and she cauht up on it. She grinned childishly, "Aaand I also sort-of-usually-always find myself surrounded by crazy."

"Hair of blood and went alone into a clear danger zone," he fired back calmly.

Hawke raised an eyebrow. "Which you haven't made any less dangerous, thank you very much. I take it Anso lied his ass off."

"Not everything was a lie. Retrieving what was in the chest was still the main mission," he said calmly. Too much to ponder on right now. He gestured in peace, "Your employer was simply not who you believed."

She seemed to take it all in and understand the logic. Her purpose was fulfilled, either way. A brief silence occurred, she was thinking something thoroughly. She was nodding briefly while staring blankly at the ground.

That's the time when he had to ask her for help. He only got out two syllabes, "I... uh," which made him start to sound like Anso, when she interrupted.

"If you couldn't face them why not just run?"

"There comes a time when you must stop running. When you turn and face the tiger," he said decisively. She noticed the his tone. This had not been a creed in which he believed for years, but rather an impulsive revelation, hurtled onto him forcefully. He seemed fearless, but he held her as a condition to his drive for vengeance.

She watched him carefully say this and seemed to agree with her eyes alone, as if she understood him and actually expected that answer.

"If they really were trying to recapture you, I would have happily helped you crush their blighted souls either way," she said calmly. She shrugged. "You just had to ask."

"Perhaps the deception was unnecessary," he said perceptively, sizing her up in silence. A sudden rush of sorrow or shame came about his blank expression as he lowered his gaze. "I... have met few in my travels who would help without sought for personal gain."

What are you talking about? We saved you because you were dying and now you are free to do what you want. You could stay with us, too, if you wish. But just to be clear, I'm not your master, nor is anyone else" . He tried to open his eyes again, but couldn't until he heard her saying with confidence,"Well, you've met me now. Look at my masterpiece," Hawke said, grinning and pointing at the numerous Tevinter corpses lying around them.

"It is impressive, indeed...If I may ask, what was in the chest?"

"It was empty. What were you expecting?"

"It doesn't matter any longer," he said bitterly. "Even so, I had to know."

She smiled at him, an action far from being the natural result of the sudden turn of events. "Teh, all that for an empty chest? Nonsense."

"Not precisely. Forgive me one moment". He searched the captain's body and found a note with a map of encircled locations in Kirkwall where he may have been spotted and a house in Hightown marked with an X. There was writing too, which he couldn't read, but that filthy calligraphy he could recognize anywhere...

"It's as I thought. My former master accompanied them to the city," he said in disgust, boiling, contained anger destroying this calm demeanor he strove to display. Hawke stepped closer to him, seeming ready to get illuminated on the new information.

"I know you have questions, but I must confront him before he flees. I… will need your help," he said nervously, looking ashamed or guilty, like a dog with its tail between its legs, or either way, uncomfortable.

Her first response would have been obvious, she was going to help him. It was the right thing to do. But something seemed to block the words from coming out. Her survival instinct kicked in.

"You lured me into a trap… and now you want my help?" she asked suspiciously, making it seem utterly logical for him to take his note and carry his lousy bones up to Hightown himself.

He didn't yield, although he had lost grounds to outwit her already. "If Anso had told you to divert an ambush of Tevinter bounty hunters, would you have done it?"

"Of course I would have done it!" she gestured angrily. "I just had to walk twenty more feet to ask my friends to accompany me so I wouldn't almost die."

Such lunacy, deliberately going alone either way. He knew why he lacked advantage of numbers, but what was her excuse? Ah, whatever. He needed help and sought to divert from any other trivial points to argue over. "Had I known of you earlier, I would have asked you myself. Everything I have said until now was true and I am asking you now, please," he said chivalrously.

He was worse than Anso. Not in the way of panting and gasping and stuttering and jumping at his own shadow, on the contrary, he kept it all together, leaking only a little of how uncomfortable, confused and scared he was. It seemed to Hawke this was his one chance to be free for good.

"I hope we're not going to him just to talk," Hawke said grumpily. How clever and devoid of personal interest was her expression, how passionate with justice.

Maybe it was enough to say the least, "Danarius wants to strip the flesh from my bones and has sent so many hunters that I've lost count. And before that, he kept me on a leash like a Qunari mage, a personal pet to mock Qunari custom." His eyes were filled with personal drive for justice now. "So, yes, I intend to do more than just talk," he finished mockingly. She knew this expression all too well, eyes hiding under frowning eyebrows, pressed lips, prepared to fight until it was over.

"Seems like this is going to be a long night… Come on," Hawke said smiling. She relaxed and assumed her headstrong, abruptly supportive attitude.

They walked past the slums, fighting some thugs on the way and finishing them off in one breath. The woman didn't dance on the battlefield, she jumped and swayed at the same time, making every blow and punch count. She barely wore any armour from what he could tell - a big spiked shoulder pad, clawed gauntlets, metal boots, but any other part of her body could have easily been cut or crushed, had she not forseen every move the enemy did. He wasn't used to fighting along somebody, but they paired effectively while it lasted. He drifted off from her tanking four at a time and one rogue tried to reach for his back, but she threw her own greatsword like a spear in the air and it landed brutally right into the man's head. She rushed to get it back, those few seconds would have been critical to her own safety, had he not finished the others off easily after that.

He thanked her and she thanked him at the same time. She laughed and turned her back to get her sword back and vacate the dead man's head. He watched her curiously for she had a belt full of pockets and what seemed to be little explosives and his eyes drifted away to her shapely hips. She looked behind at him and asked if he found anything useful on their corpses. He looked away confused, blushed and shook his head.

"Wait. I'm not going to risk this again. Whatever we're going to face up there, it's not going to be just ugly little slavers and I don't think we should be going alone. I have to get my brother and a friend from this building," Hawke explained while pointing towards the Hanged Man.

"We'll meet in the courtyard of those Hightown estates, near the Chantry." He lowered his gaze and seemed to kill a thought in his head. Finally, he said, Please hurry." In a second, he ran up the stairs through the market and headed towards Hightown.

What? We spend an eternity discussing the situation in the Alienage, but he can't wait two minutes to get my reinforcements? No, he just runs and … he just runs. Of course that's what he would do, that's what he's used to. Asking for my help was probably hard for him and since he trusts that I'll be there he doesn't need to follow me every step of the way until I get my shit straight. Speaking of that shit…

* * *

 

**Middle of the night, Varric's room, The Hanged Man**

"Heeeey, Varric," Hawke said awkwardly, trying to wipe off her crooked smile as she entered his bedroom. He was already in bed and Carver was, yes, just as she predicted, lying facedown on Varric's table.

"I'm not going to like this am I," Varric muttered grumpily as he woke up and saw Hawke trying to ease the introduction of the problem.

"You're not going to believe, is what you won't do."

Varric shook his head as if to snap out of his weary state and sighed,"Well, now I'm listening."

"No time, get dressed. Meanwhile, I'll poke at my brother and try to wake him up," she issued strategically. "Come on, I'll tell you everything on the way."

"Ugh, this better pay," Carver muttered harshly, trying to lift his head up.


	2. The Impending Deal Breaker

**Nighttime, Hightown Market**

"And then I told him I'd get help, he vanished and here we are,"Hawke gestured dramatically.

"So let me get this straight-" Varric said, but quickly got interrupted.

"Yes, I know, I can't believe he's survived for that long looking like that. He'd have been the perfect contestant in a Battle Arena, they would have knocked him out unconscious when they spotted him and would have brought beautiful whores to pour him expensive wine and feed him the finest food while they tried to charm him into recruitment after waking up," Hawke said picturing it, - a tall long-haired woman wearing little more than nothing trying to feed him grapes while he sat in a highchair mending his wounds. She wasn't sure, but she bet he would have looked at her once and everyone else and start magically fist-killing everyone. It was hard to believe he kept himself under control, but even harder to see him talking like that, with the impeccable vocabulary and manors of a lord or a knight. He couldn't have been spoiled as a slave though, else he would have stayed heavily indoctrinated in those chains and never wonder at possibilities.

"No, I meant you. You just happened to run into an employer in the middle of the night and then wentin there alone, walked into a double-ambush, SURVIVED, then agreed to help the one who got you into this mess. Are you generally this mentally-deranged or is this a special episode I haven't had the pleasure of witnessing before?" Varric gestured dramatically in sarcasm, trying to hide his concern.

She wasn't just indispensible to him by that point, she became dear to him. Before meeting her, his old friends had all one by one left, either for the Carta, for Orzammar, for mercantile business in the Anderfels, Rivain, Antiva, even Ferelden, or they simply got killed. He had his older brother, but they weren't the we're all one big happy family sort. His brother didn't understand him, mostly because he couldn't get his head out of his ass – he was greedy and opportunistic, he took advantage of anyone who wasn't from Orzammar and he mocked his little brother for doing volunteer work, trying to help innocents when the situation asked for it. He probably would have kicked starving orphans in the rain if he could. If his older brother treated him like dirt too, he probably wouldn't still help him so eagerly with his business.

Yes, Bartrand was all business, but Varric, surprisingly even to himself, saw past it and Hawke was the same. No job was beneath her and she took whatever pay was offered when she knew the employer wasn't just bullshitting them into hiring them cheap, but actually couldn't afford more, she didn't take assassination jobs and when innocent people were involved into complicated situations, she intervened and did what she thought was right, even if it was the exact opposite of the employer's wishes. That said, they got in trouble big time, all the time. But Hawke would just smirk and you could read in her eyes she'd say "Bring it on". He admired her for taking a stand, he thought he'd have to do all the talking and lead the group, but she took over rather happily and that meant whatever trouble they got themselves into she was taking responsibility for it, she was the one to get her ass in danger if anyone retaliated, all the fingers were pointing at her. He felt a bit guilty for enjoying his stay in her shadow, unlike her brother who couldn't shut up about it. Poor kid, he really needs a strong kick in the arse to give up this tortured little brother show.

"Do I detect genuine amicable concern? You don't have to accompany me everywhere, Varric, I know what I'm doing. And if that argument crumbles into the sea, then remember I happen to be deeply besotted," Hawke said and laughed, pointing at her head.

"Charming," Carver said, rubbing his eyes.

"The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy," Hawke recited courteously and sarcastically, meaning to mock her brother for his useless remark since his state was worse than hers. Varric was already waiting for Carver to be an asshole and ask something stupid like Another one of your quotes from the Ten Commandments of Magicus-non-moreus Anonymus?

"Maybe I put something in your drink. You're starting to sound like a snobby Chanter. Or do you usually become this proper after a few- a lot of pints?," Varric asked Hawke while giggling.

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time for that's the stuff life is made of," Hawke began sarcastically, then finished in a deep serious voice. Varric loved the way she found the fun in any situation and used it to either ease or confuse. And if there was someone to admire, it was one who knew how to make fun of oneself, not just others.

"Oh! Story time – there was this Chanter in Lotheri–," Hawke started excited.

"I thought you said we should not squander time, …unless it continues with you slaying a dragon with your very fingernails or having ferocious animal sex with a Chantry priest, then I'd make an exception," Varric said, trying to keep up the pace along Hawk;, she walked too fast, on top of being human.

Hawke raised her index finger trying to … what? Analyse the empty field street, catch a particular sound? Remember if she had left food out for her dog?

"I lost the thought. Y-yes, we shouldn't frolic, I-i mean squander," Hawke said trying to keep focus and cleared her throat. Oh, so that's how it is, Varric thought to himself. He must be real pretty.

She rushed up the stairs to the high estate district and Varric almost jumped when his area of vision widened to spot a black thing with a white head like a ghost with a hunchback near the vine stone column in the dark. Ok, so maybe that frolicking comment wasn't a slip of the tongue, but just one of Hawke's unusual puns.

"Let's go," Hawke said to the elf, intending to go forward, but the ghostly clearly-not-the-frolicky-kind of elf stepped in front of her, cutting her path.

"We must be careful. I haven't heard anything from inside the mansion. Danarius might know we're coming for him," he said, accentuating the name with clear raging disgust.

"So standing in broad, well, moonlight, in the open field is the wisest choice?" Hawke asked while raising an eyebrow. "So much for tactics," she muttered.

Maybe it's not the wisest, but random rendezvousing with a fugitive slave covered in spikes and feathers that could move through matter, as Hawke says, and standing outside his master's mansion nonchalantly in the moonlight is definitely and terrifyingly not weird at all, considering the usual stuff in our repertoire, Varric thought.

"So what are we looking at?" Hawke asked, gazing at the mansion.

"The .. the window of the upper floor?" the austere elf stated, seeming confused.

She shook her head. "My eyesight is working fine, unlike other things, but my question pertains to what kind of man we're dealing with here."

"A magister of the Tevinter Imperium," Fenris replied insipidly.

"Oh, is that all? Nothing to worry about then," Varric uttered awkwardly. Yep, it's official – the more I work with Hawke the more I become certain my head's going on a pike one day. I'm sensing the stars chose today.

"There, he is a wealthy mage with great influence. Here, he is but a man who sweats like any other when death comes for him," the elf said almost smiling at the last bit.

"Then in all likelihood we are to face powerful, if not forbidden magical defences," Hawke said. "On the off chance he's a blood mage… well, what's the worst that could happen? He becomes an ugly abomination and we cut it … or we get eaten, then there's that of course," Hawke said strategically, trying to sink it all in.

"I am not afraid of death," the elf replied sharply and determined.

"Then we should stop dragging our heels and go inside. After you?"Hawke said point-blank and took a few steps past the elf in her way and gestured in the direction of the building.

"Ladies first," he said and quickly repositioned, walking beside her towards the mansion.

Well… here goes nothing, Varric thought to himself.

Middle of the night, Inside the mansion

Once inside through the back entrance, which the elf opened for Hawke as if manors were indispensible even in critical situations, or maybe he's just scared shitless of her, I certainly would be, Varric stepped in carefully to look for traps. While disarming such a one, he almost got his glove (and hand) torn off when he heard the beforehand tenebrous and calm elf shout in a very strong voice "Where are you master?"

Way to give out our position… Am I dreaming again? Where everything works opposite to the natural way of how things should? If this is the Fade, then why is Varric in it? Fine, I'm hallucinating and it's Antonyms Day. In that case I want no safety, no money, no home and I certainly DO NOT want my siste-… Sod it. This is useless, Hawke thought to herself.

The only reason she kept herself under control that day was because she had to kill that ogre, and the other darkspawn, and protect her mother who was weak and useless in a fight, and hunt every day on the road, provide water, stay on watch in camp during the night, find a way to get in a ship despite the little money they had when they got to Gwaren and when they finally landed in Kirkwall she had to work her ass off and keep vigilant for mages who could feel her or Templars, because otherwise her mother would have lost the little hope she still had and who knows what might have happened to her brother. She couldn't let her think of Bethany now, she was too much of a coward to start recalling memories.

But the elf, he had no one and nothing but himself. That kind of instinct and the rage and constant fear that built up, the stress and probably the hunger, thirst and lack of sleep – he could have allowed himself at least for a second to be overcome by emotions when total freedom was so close, rationalizing that the shouting was a way to taunt his former master.

She decided not to comment on his action and after the way was assured to be clear by Varric, they went into the other room, in which everything was much colder. Here we go…, she thought, as she felt the Veil shift.

"Varric, stay in the doorway," she told him, then prepared her sword and the other two men did the same.

Shades uglier than Old Barlin's naked butt came out of the walls and from the ground, encircling her. She formed a barrier with her sword, as Carver and the elf struck from behind and finished three off. Another three remained which got cut in a row by her, but it wasn't enough. She sought to strike a mighty blow but the elf got in her way. She pushed him strongly behind, and just in time, as another few shades came out of the walls yet again, going for Varric and meeting the elf's blade. But the time it took her to push him was enough for the shades to get to her. She grabbed the belt-handle of her bag and wrapped them together then kicked the group into the fireplace and they disappeared.

"Interesting tactic," Fenris said while finishing the last of them. The woman whose name he couldn't remember really was lucky to be a quick thinker. For a second he thought she had gotten confused out of terror or worse, possessed, when she pushed him, but he quickly realized she had a set of moves and group positions she was used to that didn't include him, and he certainly wasn't helping to smooth the process – he wasn't a team-fighter.

Hawke scratched her head childishly. "Does your marking… haze… thingy work both ways? If you do your glowy thing and I strike you, would my sword actually go through you or something?"

"I'm not eager to find out," he said, becoming angry. "Pftuh, he sends spirits to do his fighting for him". He rushed into the hallway and screamed "Danarius! Show yourself! Your pets cannot stop us!"

They opened the door to the main hall and smelled an ambush. Varric nodded to Hawke that the way was clear as far as he was concerned and they moved into the room, but walked near the walls, avoiding the centre. That's when the glowy eye of a shade appeared from inside the wall and rawred in front of Carver's face, scaring his pants off. Oh, well, well, well, I forgot Carver is a shade-virgin.

They fought the shades to the best of their abilities, but more and more kept coming. This Danarius was either a fearsomely powerful mage or he will have been almost dead from mana exhaustion by the time they finish the horde. Hawke left the others to fight the group and ran to the other doorway to block the reinforcements. Varric shot from as far as he could, but he had to do the occasional Bianca's Fists in a shade's face. Carver moved quickly and slashed, but he wasn't in the best state and that played no advantage in this situation. The shades were demons in physical form, not seeking to possess, but to feed on people's life energy to conserve their own. He was getting weary and became clumsy, eventually falling against the wall but signalled he was still alive after Varric repeatedly shot a few firebolts into the shades near her brother. The elf remained fighting the most of them near the centre of the room and Hawke was taking care of a group past the doorway.

She heard a load growl coming from far behind her, a large red fish-shaped body with arms covered in flames was getting out of the floor and targeted the elf who shouted in pain, panting and almost falling. In the fragment of that second she felt a huge agonizing rush - she went too far away from the group, the elf was about to die, Varric was shooting useless bolts at it and Carver was sitting immobilized on the floor. The shades and the rage demon were all going for the grizzled elf.

Andraste's sodding purple buttocks, SOD IT

Fenris almost felt his life flash before his eyes, the little of it that was worth remembering – the escape, the few months that followed, the old married couple of farmers who against all expectations let him sleep in their barn for one night, saving Anso from a dozen street thugs,the burning green edges and brown star around the crazy young woman's eyes combined with her situation-inappropriate smile. They rushed like a beast in his head as he held the pummel of his greatsword and prepared to march one last time before certain death… and then his vision blurred.

A colossal wave of physical force coming from nowhere critically smashed and pushed the demons tens of feet away, making the entire floor shake beneath his feet. For a second after that, time eerily froze and quenching silence buzzed in his ears. The redhead had her hand onto the ground then ran into the flaming creature and slashed it three times, turned into a circle to get the others and kicked the rest of the shades back into the ground. Everything was over in a matter of seconds.

Creator, qui in nomine*…- . He looked above him, then beneath him. The force seemed to come ex nihilo, as if an invisible hand of the gods just knocked them over. Then he remembered that one separating detail that became the corollary – the young woman's hand on the ground. Then he made the inference, as every detail started coming to him in a rush – how she concluded that a magister would have strong magical defences, the fact that she told the dwarf to stand back and raised her sword, knowing what was coming in the room before the shades made their first appearance seconds later… and the most recent coup de grâce, the force-wave that overwhelmed the battlefield. The reality of it all was a big slap in the face from the elephant in the room. Vishante kaffas. He felt his stomach twirl and his lungs coming back in his throat.

(*Maker, what in the name of)

"Catch," the woman said throwing a pad of lint in his direction. He was perplexed even more that his reflexes still worked and caught it. They didn't do more than that, he didn't actually get the purpose of it, but then he saw her get another compress out and place it on her brother's chest wound while he was gasping because of it burning on contact. She looked at Varric and he gestured an I'm okay here. Then he realized drops of blood poured from his hair and forehead onto the ground and he pressed the cold lint on the affected area.

He felt the irony big time remembering what he said to himself when he went in the Alienage :"Will wonders never cease". It's like he asked for it. Despite the irony he didn't even find it funny.

"Are we good to go?" Hawke asked everyone, trying to ignore what she had just made happen and look as if it hadn't.

Despite her pairing up with him well in the next combat against a rage demon and never seeing her use magic again, he didn't have the stomach to look at her. He rushed for the door unlocking it with the key they found, but the office was empty, leaving only a prize behind them, an even uglier creature, what appeared to be a skeletal spirit that could cast spells at them. She didn't use any magic on it either.

He was more perplexed now than ever before. He couldn't find the words. He muttered something about needing some air and that they were allowed to take any valuables the magister left behind, then walked out of the mansion in a heartbeat.

"Hmph, nice pantaloons," Varric commented while Hawke searched through a chest in the room. "Maybe we should give them to our friend, you know, to make him less freaky, more funny."

"They both begin with the same letter, if you know what I mean. And no way, I'm keeping them. You never know when you need just the perfect thing to play a revenge-prank on someone with," Hawke laughed and put the pantaloons in her bag. They found little short of five sovereigns in that room.

* * *

 

**Still middle of the night, High Estate District**

His gaze landed on the empty streets and the black sky, the countless stars and the moon behind the grey clouds. Everything seemed vastly ordinary. A dog's barking echoed through the buildings in the distance, the wind swayed through the jasmine and ivy hanging on the stone columns in the courtyard and the ground felt cold against his feet. Everything was normal and in place. He felt the urge to spit. His head throbbed with pain, either from the wound or from the ridiculous outrage, that scorged catastrophy, that blasphemous depravity, that-that...ridiculous show. That was the word, ridiculous. He couldnt even... and that fillius scrofa* got away. Venhedis, merda*.

(*son of a female pig, *shit)

He felt his legs lose what little strength they had and leaned back on the wall, staring blankly and pressing the cold compress on his forehead.

The main door of the mansion opened.

Hawke didn't get to make two steps before she heard the deep familiar voice coming from her left. „It never ends". He was leaning against the wall with his compress on, seeming more bitter than ever and with good reason, considering the magister fled in time.

"I escaped a land of dark magic only to have it hunt me at every turn. It is a plague burned into my flesh and my soul. And now I find myself in the company of yet another mage," he said, carefully accentuating the disgust on the last words and looking directly in Hawke's eyes making her feel slapped by a random ghost. A ghost, indeed. He's going to bite me in the ass, I'm just sure of it.

"I saw what you did in there," Fenris said with all the rancor of an accusation.

"Easy, elf," Carver said, preparing to get between his sister and him.

"You harbor a viper in your midst. It will strike and turn on you when you least expect," Fenris said to Carver, and then looked at Hawke. „I should have realized sooner what you really were," he said while approaching her and giving her the compress back as if it were infected with her viper venom. He could have spat in her face and it would have still been more polite that this calm, passive aggressive behavior. Why, you ungrateful sodding - She wanted to say something but her thought got interrupted by his sudden determination to ask her the most inane and pointless of questions:

"Tell me then, what manner of mage are you?" Fenris demanded seriously."What is it that you seek?"

In the current safety of the courtyard and with all her veins popping and burning in her flesh, especially in her hands from when she betrayed her predicament and fired that force-wave, the strange pain she felt in her chest ... and with all the drunkenness coming back to her head, Hawke could only...

The woman's stone-hard immobile face leaked a short tremor and she burst into hard laughing. He raised an eyebrow, becoming even more perplexed, then quickly redirected it into a ferocious frown as she kept laughing and held her stomach. What the hell, Hawke, Varric thought, feeling confused himself.

"Hah- what mannor of mage? As if I'm a walking calamity that needs to be taken one day out of their bed and burnt at the stake in my smallclothes," Hawke said still laughing, but looking at him now. „What else did you ask me earlier?"

And there it is. He's going to kill her, Varric thought, becoming paranoid and reaching slowly for his crossbow.

"What is it that you seek?" Fenris asked, losing his patience and sounding angry.

"You of course! Isn't it obvious?", Hawke said spreading her arms in the air directed at him. "I'm your guardian angel"

"Preposturous," Fenris said, pronouncing every consonant heavily as if he were hitting at them. If there's a mysterious world record for the most crooked hard frown in the world, I think he just beat it, Varric said to himself.

"But I am! Apart from saving your ass not two minutes ago, I didn't even know about Anso's job. Didn't even read the letter. I just happened to wonder aimlessly in Lowtown thinking how much I wanted to just get out of the city and smell a tree, then I thought of darkspawn trees..." , she said, cracking up again and lost her drunken thought but quickly seemed to have found it again "... and I thought to myself Now there's a sign, there's one good tree in Kirkwall that I can go to and it's just a hundred feet away. I utterly and irevocably ignored the fact that the dwarf was pissing lie on top of lie and walked into your ambush, anyway. Then you swooped in, glow-fisted a man, asked me for help, I accepted and here we are, standing and arguing,"Hawke finished, gesturing around them.

"You walked into an ambush to smell a tree?" Fenris asked, becoming even more angry and confused. She's a mage, as well as a lunatic. Anso was right.

"Point – missing it. If I hadn't decided to head home early and smell my imaginary trees, your dwarf might have either gotten killed by thugs or kidnapped by your bounty hunters and tortured into a confession, or he might have hired some unfortunate souls that would have walked right into their deaths. Or he might have not hired anyone at all, and you would have either been captured by the hunters or died in that mansion at the hands of those demons," Hawke said, drawing a remarkable chain of logical possibilities, slapping the larger scheme of things right in his face.

"You... have a point, but you're still deflecting my question," Fenris said calmly, looking down then back up at her. He wasn't giving up, he had to know what sort of damnation the Maker had sent him. If he ever doubted the Maker existed, he didn't anymore. It was impossible for a bunch of molecules floating about at random could have one day had the vexing humor of making him escape from the hands of filthy mages just to be saved and now in debt to one.

"I think I have answered it," Hawke stated a bit aggressively. "I'm not seeking anything, but I am going to help people who need me and do the right thing, whenever I can."

"You are a well-intentioned mage and you are skilled. I know that much. But a mage, either kind or evil, can always fall pray to temptation, even for a justified and noble cause," Fenris said, feeling provoked, but also relieved to get the words out.

"Great. We're moving from pointless prodding to stating the obvious. Roses are red, violets are blue, mages are dangerous, just as are you. Care to elaborate the poem, we've got time," she said sarcastically, gesturing to the night sky.

"I'm not blind. You have all the skills and equipment of a warrior, and quite impressive ones. It's just hard to believe someone like you had the unfortunate fate of living with this curse," Fenris said, gesturing towards her.

As if that didn't apply to you as well, she thought.

He felt cornered. Anything he'd say she had a way to redirect it at the logical reasons why his words didn't matter. But were her remarks denigratory or did she simply speak out of experience? He realized after, that all the while he felt like taking her by the collar of her coat and shout at her, he'd shown her pity, or something that resembled it and felt the urge to hit himself in the head and wake up.

"... And from stating the obvious to excusing me sympathetically. That's a switch. Could you be any more choleric, aside from standing there looking like a big swollen turkey that's going to blow up at any second?"

She was being unreasonable, she knew that. He had every reason to be overwhelmed by these events and express his rage, confusion and curiosity. But the word mage for her was what the word slave was for him; it set her off and she had to plunge her irritation into his face. It's not enough he said mage the way Gamlen said to her mother „that Ferelden you ran off with", he had to call her a viper on no grounds whatsoever, as if the Maker had sent him there with a sole life purpose of being a majestic pain in her ass and making her blood boil.

He also understood he was being unreasonable. The woman helped him without question and she did so with only casting a single spell lost in a thousand sword slashes and pummel strikes and he acted like she was a walking abomination. But he felt caught between two worlds and her unusual and infuriating sarcasm was a cutting and scoundrelly means to taunt and provoke him.

"If I indeed found a worthy rival that could make me blow up, it is certainly not going to be from the groundless insults of a clown mage," Fenris half-growled, starting calm but ending enraged, sounding more and more like he was going to betray that statement if any more of those insults came.

Oh, it's on, elf.

All that justification, all the logic she muttered, the calm and understanding, puppy-dog loving, orphan-helping, slave-understanding side of Hawke, it all went shit-straight out the window. He was asking for it.

"Speaking of clowns, do those markings come in different colours? I heard the Cirque du Sole Elf is hiring. Or was it Cirque du so Gay? Alas," she said mockingly, but didn't let him reply just yet. "And if such charming magical-fisting tricks were too much for them, there's always The Blooming Rose. I heard the Madam complaining they had a shortage on barking mad elven cockatoos," she said, looking as pissed as a raging fangs-in-view lioness on her period.

He didn't understand a word of what she said except "cuckatoo" which he correctly took as a mocking comparison of his black spiky shoulder pads and gauntlets. As for the Madam, he intuited she was subtly pertaining to a certain profession.

"Well, that option's off the table too, since you seem to be a respectful regular," Fenris muttered as he gestured towards her.

Respectful regular? One must give him credit for his charming chivalrous way of calling her a whore. No matter, he was just throwing smartass comments back at her like a child crying after his toy. She could already see the fumes coming out of his long ears. Right, ears next.

"As much as I'd want to say touché, trust me, I wouldn't touch you even if those blue markings made you shit out diamonds," Hawke said and grinned, taking a step closer to mark her principled territory.

He took a step forward. "Trust me, I wouldn't take you to my bed even if- " he started.

She took another step closer. "If you had one?" she asked, striking a low blow.

"… Even if you're the last woman in Thedas," he finished and took another step closer himself, spitting hot coal from every little hole in his head and armour.

"If I were the last woman in Thedas you wouldn't even be allowed in line," Hawke retaliated, her grin stretching from here to Antiva, watching his jaws tense urging to step closer with drawn fists.

"Okay, I think we should just calm down and not spoil a perfectly nice evening of surviving butt-ugly demons," Varric cut in, before the two started pulling each other's hair off. Varric was surprised her brother let the elf even say a word to her related to her lady business, but he saw Carver smirking, enjoying watching his sister being put down in such a humiliating way by a man.

"You're right, Varric. I better go viper in someone else's midst," Hawke said with eyes narrowed, feeling all the more confused at why she kept acting like a child and hated Varric for stopping them.

"I… imagine I appear ungrateful," Fenris said awkwardly, as the dwarf eased off the flying urge to grab her by the neck and pull her closer and… do something. To scare her. Intimidate her. Of course.

"No shit, you have a reasonable imagination, compared to your observational skills," Hawke mocked him, calming down.

Fenris pressed his lips in annoyance. Whatever came over him? He nodded chivalrously, "I apologize, for nothing could be further from the truth. You came with me without any questions knowing you'd be facing danger higher than the price you bargained for," Fenris said, gesturing calmly and then reaching for his pocket. "But I did promise to repay you with all that I had, so – "

Hawke quickly raised her palm towards him, " _Keep_ your coin". Varric coughed not subtlety at all towards Hawke. Fenris' eyelids rose for a fragment of a second in disbelief. "I told you I was going to help you because you deserved it and because this was a dire situation. It has nothing to do with coin, and frankly, I'd feel insulted to take it, even if you were an asshole after I helped you."

His eyebrows joined in a frown and he lowered his head. "I … can't keep it. I do not want to be in debt to-"

"To a clown mage?" she asked sarcastically and started moving past him.

"To anyone, regardless," he stated firmly while turning back towards her.

She sighed. "You don't have bad taste in scruples. But you also don't have boots," she said, looking down at his feet.

"I do not wear boots," Fenris snarked frowning.

"Well as strong as that argument sounds, I meant you need all that coin you have to refresh and resupply, eat something, have a good night's sleep, before you head out on the run again."

"I'm not going anywhere. I told you there comes a time when you must stop running," he said, eyeing her closer as if he had just realized something. "That time is now. If Danarius wishes his mansion back, he can return and claim it."

She gestured. "Well, there's your money's worth. That mansion's already turning into a ruin - it will require some upkeep. Catch," Hawke said and smiled, then threw a coin purse in his hands. "That's what little I found in an old chest. Don't worry, I did take a thing or two for myself, just not money," she said and grinned.

"I swear I'm calling you Madam Pantaloons from now on," Varric mused, but masked his irritation for not agreeing to get at least a share of the coin, even if her argument was reasonable.

"No," Fenris said stubbornly. "I'm not abandoning debts. As you have already said, it was a small chance that you would have been there to smell your tree."

You won't let sleeping dogs lie? Maker, he's a very frustrating creature, Hawke thought, while stopping from walking away.

"Are you stepping in for the night or would you care to venture with us into another dire matter?" Hawke asked firmly.

"I-" He felt the urge to thank her. He coughed and walked towards her, making a small bow with his head. "I am at your disposal."

"You'll like this, I'm sure. It has recently come to my attention that the old estate my grandparents used to live in has become a harbour nest for underground Tevinter slavers. If we wipe it out clean, we might even save you from another chance to get tracked in the process. Shall we?"she gestured towards the stairs.

"Gladly" he said.

"Well, now that we've made a cocoon of love and comfort between us, might I know your name?" she asked sarcastically.

He had now only realised that in his savage ways he didn't even have the courtesy to introduce himself.

"My name is Fenris," he said chivalrously. "I seem to have forgotten yours when Anso told me, but I do know it made me think that you were a man."

She laughed. "We-hh-ell, you must have felt like quite the fool. I love it when that happens. Now even more. My name's Hawke".

Halfway to Sunrise


	3. Fortune Favors The Brave

**Almost Sunrise, Inside the Amell Estate**

Fenris prepared to march right into the mage when he heard that filthy and disdainful Tevinter accent mumbling from inside one of the rooms.

"Elf, if you wanna keep those feet I wouldn't take another step," Varric shouted. He looked down and barely noticed the pressure plates.

"Gamlen's out of business, but I'm sure we can work something out. First bid – you scratch my arm, I sever you in half. Second bid – you leave and maybe I won't just bite your head off", Hawke said sarcastically to the slaver.

 _She'd let them leave, after all we've been through tonight?_ Fenris asked himself, feeling the rage come back to bite him. But it wasn't exactly so. They wiped the mansion clean with slavers' blood and found Hawke's grandparents' will all well and intact. Gamlen, why you naughty son of a - uh, oh sod it, I didn't even know them – sodding cesspool basilisk, Hawke said to herself.

"Let's get out of here and take this to Mother," Carver told Hawke impatiently, seeming suddenly excited, despite his beforehand colossal disinterest in the will.

"Not that way, Carver. I'd like to see just how it feels to get out of the house as a mighty Amell," Hawke said with a mocking tone and headed towards the main entrance.

They went out and she turned to look at the two rusty red family crests on each wall that harbored the main door.

"Well, that was fun," Hawke muttered, turning to the group.

"Let's not do that again anytime soon, Hawke," Varric told her in his easing off charming voice.

"You know I can't promise that," Hawke said smiling. "Let's just move our worthless bones back to my majestic slum and watch the fireworks."

"Why are you speaking as if we're all ready to embark on the boat to Hawke's Incredible Fun Palace of Fun?" Varric asked eagerly.

"Well Hawke's Abominable House of Orgies and Virgin Sacrifices was taken, besides, don't you recall a certain one of my cruel and utterly unfair acts of disturbing your eternal slumber this lovely night?" Hawke asked sarcastically.

"I do recall it, Madam, but I don't seem to find the beneficial connection between you being an ass, me being the charming helpful dwarf… and you dragging me to smell Gamlen's old cheese so early in the morning. I'm not even drunk yet!" Varric asked frowning.

"And to miss all the family drama? You'll need this for your book, Varric and if not for that, I still have to repay you for all this racket inconvenience," Hawke continued in her sarcastic tone.

"As much as your hangover makes me want to jump like a princess and sprinkle fairy dust all over Hightown, your puzzling sarcasm is losing its charm this morning," Varric replied, putting a hand to his forehead.

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues, but parent to all the others," Hawke recited courteously, starting to make fun of Varric's bewilderedness.

"Spit it out, Pantaloons," Varric muttered, annoyed.

"I'll give you a hint – it's warm, loving and makes that belly stop growling," Hawke said smiling pointing to Varric's stomach.

"Uh, food?", Varric asked, confused.

"Mother," Hawke laughed.

"So, food," Varric stated, starting to head towards the stairs to Lowtown. They all started to follow, except Fenris who remained a statue in front of the stairs that were heading up towards High Estate District, as if there was an invisible magical barrier that he couldn't cross.

"If you're trying to fake an entropic miasma effect just so you could spit more of your mage-venom at me, Fenris, let me save you time and assure you you suck at it", Hawke said grinning from across the city square.

"No, I – " he stuttered awkwardly, looking at the stairs that were going up and then back at Hawke, "I was –" Fenris started, trying to find words as if he forgot the language.

Hawke realized someone like him couldn't just plainly understand he was invited to come, so she decided to keep the insults at a minimum for now and said:

"I know you're probably accustomed to raw and critical conditions of living by now, but I'm not sure introducing demons in your diet will work out for the better", Hawke said, already feeling liberated from the whole work she had done that day and ready to retake her jester-position.

_Oh… that's why he called me a clown mage._

"So… you would allow me in your home for a meal?" Fenris asked in a low tone, the very voice of disbelief.

"Shocking, right? Clearly, it must be a conspiracy," Hawke said sarcastically. 

"We… shall see"," Fenris stated plainly and started to walk towards the group.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, City Slums, Outside Gamlen's House**

"Easy, Junior, you still have a few obstacles until your bed, like, the stairs, the door, … the table," Varric said to Carver after he tripped on his own feet, accentuating the "table" part, since it seemed to be his choice of slumber back at the Hanged Man.

"Shut up, dwarf," Carver muttered plainly.

"Don't forget the iron spikes. Other than that, you're welcome to slam your chin into anything," Hawke said turning to her brother.

"Care to join in on that, Sister?" Carver asked aggressively.

"Tell you what, Carver," Hawke said with an elusive smile. "If I hold you to that duel and you still think that's a good idea after you wake up, I'll be happy to oblige"

"You think yourself so dangerous. You might have the skill, but you're still a girl," Carver said turning to Hawke in front of the main entrance, while Varric and Fenris were waiting before the stairs, keeping their distance.

"So it's fair game then," Hawke said joyfully.

"Ha ha, very funny. That was cheap, even for you. But I guess that's what you get from threatening someone with a serpent* up their sleeve", Carver said to his sister with disgust. Hawke picked right up on the pun related to Fenris' previous "viper" comment.

"Charming. I think you've just found your soul mate," Hawke muttered, meaning their newest merry party member.

"And to think the family drama was supposed to start inside the house," Varric said sarcastically to Fenris.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, Inside Gamlen's House**

"Oh, my darling babies, you didn't come home, I suspected the worst," their mother screamed rushing to hug the both of them while they were standing awkwardly in the doorway with Varric and Fenris.

"It was her fault," Carver said disdainfully.

"Yes, yes, it was my doing, we all get it, Carver. But not without good cause, you'll want to see this", Hawke said gesturing to the will.

After Hawke put Gamlen in his place, Leandra should have been enraged, but instead she simply said she was happy to know her parents didn't die hating her and thought of the best course of action in getting back the estate. Fenris, more than the others, looked at her in disbelief, how she stood her ground that love still was more important than coin and had so much courage and confidence that she had better get started making a name for herself to attract the viscount's attention into getting her a meeting. He noticed the resemblance between her and her daughter, not just physically, but in the way they saw past the infuriating details and looked at the bigger picture, becoming set on how to fix the problem rather than make a fuss over it. But his train of thought lost him as she approached him and Varric with warm eyes.

"I'm sorry for the scene you had to witness, I didn't even have the manners to great my children's guests," Leandra said putting her hand on her forehead.

"There's no need to apologize for your justified discomfort, my lady. My greetings and my apologies for barging into your private affairs so early in the morning", Varric told Leandra charmingly.

"Well, good morning to you, too, Varric. You seem to be in one piece, so I am inclined to believe they didn't drag you into one of their crazy dangerous escapades," Leandra said laughing. _Well, crazy – check, dangerous – check, but, then again, they're all like that. Nothing fancy,_ Varric thought to himself. "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met before", came her soft voice addressing to Fenris with a warm smile.

"We have not. I am Fenris," he stated plainly and remained petrified, as he realised he didn't know how proper introductions were made between humans, especially between a man and an older woman.

"I am Leandra, the mother of these two charming menaces that keep me up and worried at night," she said gracefully. For a moment, he felt guilty and inappropriate, remembering how he put Hawke in danger and how she helped him against powerful demons with no sought for coin and now granting him a proper meal despite what little they had, by the looks of their clothes and home. He wanted to open his mouth and form a proper apology, but the woman smiled and said: "Well, come now, don't just stand in the doorway, take a seat", she said motherly and gestured towards the table.

"I'm going to scrape the blood and other charming bodily fluids off my coat, in the meanwhile, try not to let Gamlen lure you into one of his big ideas," Hawke told Varric and Fenris while she was taking off her coat and went in one of the rooms.

"Or the dog slobber his filth on your clothes," Gamlen muttered, being annoyed.

"He has a name, you know," Hawke shouted from the other room.

"Pfteh, what's wrong with "dog"? Real easy to remember…" Gamlen said disdainfully, looking at the mabari.

"Then I'll begin calling you "old scoundrel" from now on. Real easy to remember and much more to the point, as well," Hawke shouted from the other room. Gamlen would have retaliated any other day, but not today – he had no right to jump and bark.

They each took a seat awkwardly at the table, while Carver started staring blankly at the fireplace and his mother went into the kitchen.

"So, uh, elf… that thing you do with your hand," Varric started, trying to ease off the awkward silence. Fenris raised an eyebrow, remaining quiet and waiting for the dwarf to finish his statement or question. "I … bet that makes pickpocketing easier."

"I wouldn't know," he lied. It was not the kind of place or time to explain his abilities or partake in an exchange of rogueish stealing techniques. "I'll… try it sometime and find out," he said, looking away from the dwarf.

 _So quiet and austere, even I can't think of a way to make him open his mouth. Well, I could just pronounce "mage", but I'm afraid he'll turn into a glowing blue snow-globe of hatred before I even finish and kill everyone. Bah, at least we've met the number one champion of brooding in the Tevinter finals branch. Boy, this guy gives me the shivers_ , Varric thought.

Leandra came out of the kitchen and rushed to put the chicken stew on their table, eager to find out what they thought. Fenris' stomach growled in response and he tried to restrain from digging right into the food like a savage beast.

"MOTHER WHERE THE HELL DID YOU PUT MY SCALE VEST?" Hawke's voice shouted from afar, deeply annoyed.

"I don't know what that means, love, but look in the laundry basket",, Leandra shouted back.

"WHY WOULD YOU – ugh, just please don't touch anything you can't name, let alone put in the laundry, Mother," Hawke said pacing heavily through the room.

"Dig in, boys, there's a lot more where that came from, don't worry!" Leandra told them, but looking more at Fenris, as she picked up that he wasn't accustomed to amicable visits. "You must be starving. Come on now, don't be shy, it won't bite you", Leandra said to Fenris and he looked at her trying to form a proper thank you.

"You have my gratitude", he said, feeling stupid for the way it came out.

She laughed brightly. Her smile was like a god-sent ray of hope in the eye of the storm. He wondered if his mother was like her and if she was suffering after him being taken away. He wondered if she might have gotten free herself had she been a slave, then one day run into him and recognize him… the pain and horror she would have felt seeing him, the gruesome result of his master's experiments. Would she even consider taking him back and - "Leave your splint… mail… whatever, and come eat before the boys finish your share too! … NOW, love!", he heard Leandra's voice shout aggressively but surprisingly still in a loving way to her daughter, who was lost somewhere in the other room.

Hawke looked into the basket and started to grab out every piece of cloth in there. There was no scale vest to be found. She sighed while holding the laundry all over her body and looked at the old patched clothes.

"Don't be sad laundry, nobody's doing me either," Hawke said to the clothes, folding them and put them back in the basket.

Hawke came out of the room wearing a chainmail waist girdle over a dark blue tunic and black pants, along with her legendary belt of many pockets. She put iron pads on her knees and looked after her old boots that had been previously thrown aggressively by the fireplace in a rush. Carver was standing there, looking bitter, probably remembering how much he owed Varric over Wicked Grace.

"That's a much better choice of armour. Scales are –" Fenris started.

"Shit, I know. But I can't afford to waste the little good I have by using it every day when it's not even necessary," Hawke finished his sentence in a more direct manor.

Fenris raised an eyebrow, pertaining to their most recent turn of unforeseen events that certainly required more than just a coat and a spiky shoulder pad.

"… Good point. But unlike you, I don't have the privilege of wearing precious long-lasting materials. Or feathers, don't forget the feathers", Hawke mocked him, sarcastically adjoining aesthetics to tactics. Ah, they almost agreed on something. Too bad, Varric thought. She grabbed a bowl of stew and drunk it whole in a second like a gross, but true warrior, then turned to the fireplace to get her boots.

"Hello, Lord Carver," she said courteously, trying to make him smile for once.

Meanwhile, Fenris was eating his chicken like the lion cubs of the Seheron jungles ate their gazelles, forgetting his restraint as he saw Varric dig into the bowl like a giant starving bear, slobbering and panting, then falling with his back on the wall, terminated.

"Don't you dare use that against me! I gave everything! Question me, Mother, yourself, but not that!" he heard Hawke scream at her brother.

"There's nothing to question, it was your fault!" Carver shouted back. 

"Oh, and there it is! Feel better getting that off your chest?!" Hawke fired back with impossible rage, and trying to hide it. 

"As a matter of fact I DO. Better late than never," Carver said cuttingly with all the rancor of an accusation.

"Good. Because I keep every death with me," Hawke said firmly, with an edge to her voice. "If you want to share that weight, be ready to take it."

The way Hawke said it gave shivers to everyone. Fenris started to wonder what was the nature of those deaths she kept with her and if perhaps she had some stains on her past that she couldn't wipe even with saving innocents. Then he realised it didn't take long for him to forget what she was and what she was capable of. He felt confused, as he was caught between two different aspects of the situation – the part where Hawke was a helpful woman who wielded a sword proudly and protected her family, keeping every death with her, whatever that meant and the part where she was a fistful of demonic attractions left in vacancy.

"Well, good talk," she said, turning away from her brother.

"Sister…" he said, almost sounding genuinely sweet with a hint of care. "I feel… I don't know. It's like mother's taking it out on us. She was just afraid. But I have no place in the life she's trying to give us here, it means noth-"

"YOU THINK I like this? Taking care of what Father left? The 'second child' act is getting pretty stale, Carver. I try my best to live along this mess, protect you both and at least bring enough coin for one Maker-damned bowl of stew… But you think I'm happy living away from the one land I know, in this pathetic excuse of a free city?! What do I have to do here, except lure in the shadows like a rat? Nobody's wondering if your sister's a…" she paused, "… if you make a name for yourself…" She looked down and her eyelids hardened. "You think it isn't hard to be the one whose head everybody spits on if things don't go their way? I didn't put on a crown and name myself head of the family and you complain about it constantly, but without actually trying to assert yourself and take responsibility! I've taken mine in what I am and what I've done and I've even taken yours as mine, but it's not enough, is it?"

"Just stop babysitting me!" Carver demanded.

Hawke flung her arms out and said, "Babysitting you? I take you everywhere with me _as well as_ letting you go on your own and get into trouble."

Carver rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Right, you never get into trouble, I'm the family buffoon."

"In case we haven't finished this particular subject, I've assumed that position. Ever since you picked up a sword, you were free to find your stupid 'fortune' without thinking twice about being taken away for what you are. Or shall we recall my face when you left for Ostagar and I couldn't enlist because Maker forbid, it was crawling with Circle mages and Templars and I couldn't do piss shit to defend my country! All the training, all the years of getting hunchback, getting scarred and tired, all the discipline and control, all just for nothing, because I was useless in the end and here the mighty Lord Carver complains he can't do shit because he's in MY shadow?!" she screamed and then stopped, realizing just how angry she was and how much she allowed herself to let out that she had been keeping for so long. Her look fell down to the floor and she shook her head, turning to the main entrance and leaving.

Fenris didn't even have time to process the event, as he saw her mother staying in the kitchen doorway looking petrified and agonized by her daughter's frustrating confession and restraining from crying. Varric stood up and apologized again for their interference and thanked her charmingly for the meal she had procured for them. He gave a look to Fenris meaning they had to leave, but he felt to urge to apologize, thank her, apologize again and tell her everything was going to be alright, yet he had no grounds to make such an assumption and assure her of it.

* * *

 

**Morning, City Slums**

Hawke was sitting on the stairs outside the house eyeing the iron spikes with a fierce urge to break them down. Then she directed her gaze at the cold-blue sky, feeling the subtropical breeze of the Waking Sea. She despised the humid and hot weather of Kirkwall in the deep autumn season. At this time in Ferelden the horizon would be splashed with purple pigment of the autumn clouds and the trees would form a wild natural pallet of red, yellow and dark green crowns, beautifully fencing the well-known "Ferelden-brown" of the ground. She wondered where the migratory birds were heading, as Kirkwall was no more than a sad harbour for stray crows and ravens. I don't get why Tevinter looks like a much more welcoming home for these birds, but hey, why should I argue? Apparently hawks settle for the same shit prize as those crows do. Her home, her village, even her family of old, were all irrecoverable, dead, gone.

Varric and Fenris came out, waiting awkwardly for Hawke to say something.

"Well… if you weren't shitfaced hungover already, I'd have offered to buy you a pint now," Varric said with an amicable wink. 

"You know that actually treats the hangover, right?" Hawke asked without turning her head behind.

"Oh, no. I'm not poking a dragon with a large bat so early in the morning," Varric said while gesturing peace with his open palms. "Besides, until we get those maps you're not seeing one drop, as I recall you solemnly promising last night."

"Well, my good man, I'm failing miserably to see how we can resolve this major inconvenience," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Oh, cheer up, Pantaloons, get some sleep and then we can go back to the ritual dismemberments."

"You think I'm going back in that shack after that ridiculous fiasco? I thought Gamlen was going to be the star of this particular dramatic play, but I've outdone him tenfold."

Varric broke into a grin and crossed his arms. "Well, you know I love collecting dirt on my friends. You've given me the pleasure to witness the juicy firsthand."

Hawke did not so much as flicker now, instead staring into empty space. "Glad I could humor you. Now, let's go."

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric?"

"Just sleep at my place. Come on, we're in no state to function. Best bet, we're going to wake up agreeing to guard prostitutes or worse, sign up for the profession." Varric said, putting his hand on his forehead.

"Me? Never!" Hawke said with a gasp. "You…  I see how that might be of concern. And if while we're still on that, maybe Fenris can finally pursue his one other reason for living," she said, grinning, but not looking at them.

"I'm afraid to ask what you think my first reason for living is," Fenris muttered, taking a seat a cold distance away from her.

Hawke finally turned her head towards him. "Haven't we established that already, oh ye humble pain in my ass?"

"I'm sure it's taken you quite the time to come up with that," Fenris said calmly. 

"Don't worry, the more you annoy me, the less time I need to make you crawl into a dark pit and cry," Hawke said joyfully.

"Threats," he said cuttingly. "Typical for a mage."

Hawke couldn't smile wider. "You just go ahead and keep on lining up your fan club, because I am always going to be there to keep knocking them down. In the meantime, let me know if you need tea and biscuits for your weekly meetings."

"Well, a woman's choice of weapon in a murder is usually poison…" Fenris said.

"I'm glad you deem me courteous enough not to simply fireball your ass right now," Hawke said with an edge.

"You could try, but I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," he fired back.

"No need. I'm already disappointed," she said, shaking her head. "You sized me up and put me in a box, judging only to the extent of my in-born predicament. You took no time to get to know me, my well-earned abilities, nor my principles." She rested her arms on her knees in a dominant, cocksure manner. "As long as that stands, I can only weep for your ignorance."

 _I'm sure he seized you up in a lot more different ways than that and wants to lock you in his cellar while he plays the mean and merciless Templar and you're the beautiful defenceless apostate,_ Varric thought, cracking up a story.

"Yes, I'm sure you're very broken up about it," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Right? You can see my soul breaking from the Anderfels," she returned the sarcasm.

"Evidently so", Fenris muttered, keeping is frown like a stubborn dragon kept its treasure.

She smiled. "You're right", she said, getting up and taking a few steps forward. "I couldn't care less". She looked at the cold-blue subtropical sky once again. "One can never reach their destination if one stops at every dog that barks", she said, smirking.

* * *

 

**Before Sunrise, Fenris' Mansion**

_In iudicando criminosa est celeritas_. Hasty judgements are criminal.

A quick evaluation is a terrible evaluation. But what was the actual impression that this woman had given him? Helpful, quick-thinking, fierce, dedicated… stubborn, sarcastic, ridiculous, mean, impulsive, frustrating, a spit into any threatening man's face, … but not reckless, not careless. She cornered him every time he attacked her, but without using guilt or shame in the process. Nevertheless, she was an impossible creature. She was nothing like the mages he was accustomed to, but that was an understatement. She retaliated and defended herself from every one of his accusations, sometimes making him run out of counterarguments, more because if she grew tired of his seriousness she just started to throw witty one-liners and sarcastic jokes. She didn't mock or denigrate him though, she listened to everything he had to say and took him seriously, which was more than he could ask for. She looked at each side of the coin, balanced the arguments, thought of the best course of action and refrained from acting hasty on her prejudices. Although what prejudices she had, it was not clear. She seemed to hate Templars just as much as mages, even as she argued for their freedom. Hawke didn't seem to take pride in being what she was, but she leaked a certain kind of pride unrelated to it. She was not a hypocrite, but she was not an activist either. For all her incredibly frustrating persona, she continued to astonish him. Simply put, Hawke was something else.

But even by this judgement, one could not simply act on the presumption of innocence. That seemed to prove itself clearer and clearer each day, as much as it became more baffling, inconsistent… and plain contradictory. When the "benevolent" abomination turned to them and mumbled about them threatening his "sanctum of healing and salvation", three things were clear in their nature, but remained to be explained: 1. He took a step in front of Hawke while raising his sword all in a second to defend her, for no reasonable purpose; 2. The mage's reaction came from feeling his hostile presence from the lyrium markings; 3. He was going to be trouble.

At least in one of that pursuits Hawke was also clear. As the mage offered a "you scratch my back I scratch yours" deal so quickly after bluntly refusing her request, she picked up right on it and sensed the trouble and the risk of the mage not honouring his bargain. She turned away to leave and he looked down, his desperation crystal-clear and shouted after her to wait and hear his situation. But she took the deal. She made them help an abomination and could have got them killed by Templars and all just to witness a sob fest ending with killing his tranquil friend that he tried to save.

The more ridiculous part in this story was that they started to hang out with that Anders as if they were all a merry band of denigrates, united by the unfair oppression of the world. What was she thinking, appealing to such a creature? Hawke was no fool, but maybe that statement was made too early. _Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur_. The world desires to be deceived, therefore it is.

"Thinking about writing your memoirs?" came an annoying voice from behind.

"Vishante kaffas, woman, didn't they teach you to knock on people's homes when you visit where you come from?" Fenris uttered in irritation, his instinct kicking in and getting the better of him.

"If I said no, would you let me off the hook?" Hawke asked sarcastically, walking inside the room.

"Seeing as I haven't yet plunged my sword into your chest, I think the matter explains itself," Fenris said grumpily, taking a seat back on the bench in front of the fireplace.

"You have my eternal gratitude for your generous mercy, serah," she said sarcastically.

Fenris lifted his eyebrows in an unimpressed expression. "Is there a point to this unexpected visit?"

"Does genuine friendly desire to see how you're doing count as an acceptable reason?" Hawke asked with a smile.

"Only if it were indeed genuine, which I'm more than certain it is not," Fenris said calmly.

"Bah, you wound me", she said in a sweet, sarcastic voice nonetheless.

"I'm sure you're crying inside," Fenris said, joining in their usual exchange of calm-sarcasm-before-everything-goes-to-flames-and-they-start-killing-eachother.

She scratched her head and pressed her lips. "I'm about to. More because I'm sure you're about to literally wound me if I keep this act up, right?"

"Very much so," Fenris said, almost wanting to smile. Well at least she was reasonable.

"Ah, I see," she said and starting breaking into a mocking little smirk. "Did you get cursed by some demon to have only about a thousand words left to say before you become eternally mute? Is there a daily word limit to three or four sentences, half of which contain excessive and pointless ranting about mages?"

"Only half, indeed. You should give me some credit for that," Fenris said, almost cracking up a ghost of a smile.

"On what grounds, exactly?" she asked, folding her arms and raising an eyebrow.

"That I find it reasonable to do everything with moderation?" Fenris said in a calm, low tone, and trying to remember why he had been angry in the first place.

She started laughing. It was bewildering to him how half the time she mocked and barked and the other half she laughed at his sarcasm, as if they were suddenly old friends and this was all fine and dandy.

"See? I can't stay mad at you," Hawke said joyfully and stretched her arms out. "You're such a sweet bowl of pudding to my sourpuss."

"I did not understand one word in that sentence," Fenris said flatly.

"Alert the Chantry! I have surpassed Fenris' vastly rich and knightly vocabulary!"

"Forming poor language structures betrays your statement more than it implies it."

"I'll keep that perchance I find one of the sods I give."

"Maybe one the way of inspiring thousands of women to come in pursuing your astonishing model of ladyship."

"Well, why should I be a model lady? A model is just an imitation of the real thing," she said in a charming proud voice.

"Hm. Good point. It remains to be seen just what the real thing looks like, however," he retaliated with a snarky stare.

"Look closely. Because the closer you think you are, the less you actually see," she said confidently, and smiling while looking at the fireplace. The light of the flames enveloped her face like a bright burning sun without a crown.

Fenris turned his head to the fire too and asked, "Is that subtle mocking of my weekly check for demonic possession?"

"I don't even notice those things. Father used to do that all the time, it's nothing fancy for me anymore," she said, her smile dying as she finished. She got up and turned to him, looking austere and serious.

He struck a nerve, he knew it. Although she actually brought it up, so it was her doing, but still, it raised his curiosity to no end. He couldn't ask right away however, there was no sense in triggering her defenses, that much he could predict.

"I have a … debt I have to live up to," she dralwed, looking down.

She was starting to open up, to his surprise. Perhaps there was a possibility that they could communicate, angry outbursts and wild arguments aside.

"A delivery. Up Sundermount. It's a debt, so it won't pay, but your presence could come in handy. I'm done trying to find common grounds with my brother, as you may have noticed. I'd like you to replace his blade, if you're not already killing me in your head and are about to throw me out of the mansion for even suggesting, that is"

_Ah, she wasn't opening up. At least considering the possibility that I might not swoop along to help her when it's not a job is worthy of respect._

"The list of reasons why I should be throwing you out of my mansion goes far too long for me to put that one in, too," he said.

"I'll take that as a yes and get out right now," Hawke said with a crooked smile and gestured behind with her thumb,"before the Maker sends you special powers of reaching into my dreams and strangling me in my sleep."

She could have sworn one of his lips curled into a little smirk. "Mine already involve strangling you in them. Luck might just be your strongest feature."

"I'm a lucky girl, indeed," she said, smiling and realizing it was possible that he would take it as a flirt. "You'll understand my statement when we get to Sundermount, no worries", she added.

"And when would that be exactly?" Fenris demanded.

"As soon as I wake up Varric from his beauty sleep," Hawke said. There just had to be a scratch lurking in that sentence. "I'll return after to collect your bony ass and then we're all off to adventuring!"

 _Back to the stinging, always glad to partake, Hawke_ , he thought, wondering if his sarcasm was actually truthful talk.

"No need. I'll escort your undoubtedly much more muscular clown mage physique to The Hanged Man," Fenris fired back.

"I don't get this. What should a clown mage even look like?"

"You could look into a fascinating invention called a mirror and find out."

"Maybe you should look into one too, you have a pointy-eared cantankerous grizzled man growing on your face. It's really unsettling."

"Femina", he said, sighing.

"Cheap way to curse me, Fenris."

"It wasn't a curse, although it could be argued."

She frowned. "Well I'm sure it wasn't a love declaration either, so what was it?"

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I said women."

Hawke started to grin in amusement. "Really? Just, women? No Andraste's blasphemous whore of the undergods? No scorching demonic daughter of a scoundrel mage?"

"My daily word count is reaching its limit," Fenris said flatly. 

She pressed her lips and nodded. "Right."

**Sunrise**


	4. The Sunken Orlesian

**Afternoon, Outside Kirkwall**

"Well, fancy meeting you here, Anders," came Hawke's joyful voice from behind him.

"Hawke? What are you doing here?" he asked in confusion. He had to look left and right again as if it was suddenly imperative to check his whereabouts and be perfectly sure they  _were_ on a mountain path, lonely and dangerous. Well, what? Was he better? He was literally alone. What excuse did he have?

"Traveling on business. Just as you, I see," she gestured calmly.

Anders looked down as if they caught him dragging a corpse to an improvised secret burial ground. "Ah, well, if I could grow a greenhouse in my clinic, I wouldn't be wondering out here waiting to be eaten by wolves"

 _You could try a little harder. The wolves are certainly on their way,_ Fenris thought.

"I see how Darktown wouldn't be all fine and jolly with more living things in it than dead," Hawke mused with a shrug.

"Are you heading north?" Anders asked.

She nodded and gestured. "We are. Up Sundermount."

"Really? But you won't reach it in daylight," he said and finished with a frown.

"Well, someone woke up with their ass on the pillow instead of the other way around and we had to wait for charming Ser Mopealot to clear his head," she said, not quite aware - or perhaps indeed aware and intended as such - that her thorough description of recent events predicted Fenris to be the central character. She was however, pertaining to Varric.

"Hey, I'm allowed a day per month to be cranky and irritable, which is more than I could ask for considering the mocking and barking I have to bear every day the first chance you and Broody over here share a glance," Varric muttered grumpily.

"Touché," Hawke said flatly, trying to abstain from making fun of Varric's mention of "one day per month" that made her think of at least thirty man-on-the-period jokes.

"Rightfully served, Madam," Varric answered with proud narrowed eyes.

"You know, I am free for the day - no patients. I have time to spare and coin to chip in with at an inn for the night." Anders turned and pointed behind him uphill. "There's one just a few miles to the east with a very funny name." Fenris picked up the suspicion he had an agenda.

"You know me, I disavow any other way of naming your inn. No one would stay overnight in inn named in a sudden fit of horrid grump. Like House of Flies. Or The Inn Of Half-Eaten Moth Scarfs." She looked at Fenris who caught her eye. She shrugged sardonically, "Well. I wouldn't."

"So you wish me to tag along?" Anders asked with a smile.

"Ah, and why not? The more the merrier. " She stretched her arms and looked at the others. "And since the reality certainly doesn't live up to the expression, yes, please come and bring us some some sunshine" she said, gesturing a sphere.

"Ahah, I'm glad you think I bring sunshine" Anders said, raising an eyebrow and grinning.

"She's mocking your hair, Blondie, don't read more into it," Varric said charmingly.

"Varric?"

"Yes, Hawke?"

"Shhhht. He doesn't need to know that," she whispered half-intentionally half-not-so-intentionally louder.

* * *

 

**Before Sunset, The Sunken Orlesian's Inn**

"Well, this is going to be fun…" Hawke said sarcastically, looking at the only room they could get with two enormous but poorly maintained beds.

"I admire your optimism, Hawke, but, this is not going to be fun," Varric said while touching a lamp and it falling apart in the next second. "Hmph, look at this shack. This is worse than Orzammar's Dust Town."

"Being locked up with mages in here for a night does make me feel claustrophobic," Fenris uttered grumpily, maintaining an aura of nonchalance.

"Are you ever going to stop harping on the mages here?" Anders asked Fenris, catching up with him as if to tackle him with his all-powerful muscular speeches.

"No," came his placid tone, without turning to face Anders.

Anders narrowed his eyes. "They aren't what you saw in Tevinter."

"The moment they are free, mages will make themselves magisters," Fenris retorted with discomfort.

"They're slaves – you should want to help them," Anders said in tones of some questionably convincing amazement.

"I dont," Fenris uttered flatly, clear disgust all alight in his tone.

Anders rubbed his forehead in disbelief. "Maker only understands how you could be so blind." With the same palm he raised as if his Palm of Everlasting Victimization now took the more assertive Sweat Of Holy Flaming Argumentatives. "You're hating on people who are just as imprisoned and malnourished as you were, without doing anything to deserve it."

Fenris abstained from sighing in annoyance. "They are able to deserve it, if they are free. That's enough ground for me to be  _cautious._ "

Of course, Anders didn't understand what he meant. He meant exactly what he meant. Perhaps that seemed as just too much a simple element for this mage to grasp. Or the other voices inside his head. Yes, complex in the spirit, simple in the brain.

Anders lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed. "And what have you done since  _you_  were free? I recall certain acts of vicious fist-killing."

" _I_  did that at the behest of no demon," Fenris defended himself firmly.

"So you're agreeing you don't need to be possessed to be a murderer? Good," said Anders, arms crossed, as in crossed between the desire to punch him in the face and the sheer, unrighteous in _justice_  of him doing so, no matter how aflame he was with inconvenience.

"I did not  _murder_  anybody. What deeds I have done, I have only done in self-defense," Fenris stated firmly.

"And you think mages don't do that as well?" Anders snorted.

"Why must you go on about this?" Fenris asked with obvious edge to his voice. "The moment a mage is free, they become thirsty for the power that they have never had, from inferiority to superiority complex all in a reach of a heartbeat. They take on the role of the aggressor, having been aggressed themselves." He gestured dismissively. "It's as simple as that." Indeed, too simple for this mage to grasp. Perhaps he just had too many things to be simple about and couldn't add another to the pile.

"You're generalizing just because mages made it personal for you," Anders said angrily.

Fenris was unimpressed, nonchalance in his tone as he spoke, "You were a Circle mage, were you not? Doesn't that make your senseless and ultimately inane rant also personal?"

"And rightfully justified," Anders said with quick anger. "The ordeal I lived through does the trick."

Again, Fenris was unimpressed. "I've lived through worse, mage, I assure you."

"Then we should settle this by a third party's opinion. One who isn't for or against the imprisonment of mages by being a victim of the Circle or of the magisters" Anders said, everyone eyeing a certain perfect candidate for their ridiculous debate.

…

**...**

"Why is everyone looking at me?" Hawke asked awkwardly while scratching her head.

"I'm surprised they didn't scream  _Hawke, be on my team, I have tea and cakes!_ and  _No, Hawke! Be on my team, I've got the incredible touch of a broody tiger in heat!_ "Varric said, butting in grumpily.

"Hawke, you were a free mage from the start and you had to run all your life from Templars. You've lived a relatively normal life, aside from that, and you've known the privileges of having a family and being loved. Moreover,  _you have not succumbed to the charms of any demon,_ either," Anders finished disdainfully as he turned his clearly-ticking-and-boiling-time-bomb gaze onto Fenris. He pointed at him with an ever more pretentious boiling pointy finger. " _You_  open up his eyes!"

"Having lived the everyday man's life, being imprisoned for all your life or having enormous political and economic power do not make a difference," Fenris explained rather calmly. "A mage could be either of those and still be susceptible to the one thing everyone wants."

"Sex?" Hawke asked awkwardly, trying to ease off the tension. No, tension was an understatement in that scenario.

" _Power_. And more power after that," Fenris said, frowning at Hawke's ridiculous joke.

"Those that do only want it because their humanity makes it so, not their magic," Anders redirected in a high tone.

"That doesn't excuse what they do. They wield abilities that make power much easier to be obtained. To kill, to torture, to inspire fear, usually in that order" Fenris said keeping his aura of nonchalance.

"Just as some mages use blood magic, so many non-mages use swords, armies, a crown and other just as vicious methods that inarguably have the same result, though," Hawke intervened at last.

"Exactly," Anders agreed with passion.

"You kill a man with a sword, he's dead and he can't get more dead than that. But with blood magic-" Fenris started tenebrously.

" - He can't die dead enough" Hawke finished, seeming to agree with him now.

"Excellently said," Fenris replied, nodding rather chivalrously towards her.

"And then we team up and kill the undead as well, what's so fancy about that?" Anders asked, becoming enraged.

"That there are estimably millions of corpses in the ground that with the right kind of magic could all be animated into a gargantuan massive army. Add shades, demons and other summoned monstrosities…" Hawke replied strategically.

"That would require a sheer equal army of mages to achieve. It will never happen!" Anders retaliated angrily.

"It hasn't yet happened because in Tevinter they hold enough power and land to sit on their asses and drink cocktails from the eyes of slaves all day, and the rest of most mages have been imprisoned and scattered all over the continent, so it's impossible for them to unite against the whole world," Fenris said, heightening his tone as well.

"You're mad! Even if that were possible, it wouldn't happen if mages would be granted the same rights as everybody else. They wouldn't be a nation, but a group of people scattered all over Thedas, as you said. They wouldn't have the reason to do it," Anders replied.

"Well, they could have the reason, seeing as how history has treated them. Driven by a force of vengeance, they could form quite the battalion," Hawke added, realizing she was letting herself be tossed from one mad freak of nature to another.

"You can't be serious. You'd treat a whole group of people like objects just because one day they could form a vast conspiracy to overthrow all the nations in the world and imprison them instead?  _Maybe you should keep Hawke on a leash_ , then, to begin with. Doesn't what you say imply that you should, seeing how you haven't yet turned her in to the Templars?" Anders shouted.

"Whoah whoah, no one's holding Hawke on any leash. Not here, not in bed, not ever, capisce?" she said angrily, feeling awkward and penetrated.

"Jest all you want, Hawke, but if you're not of the same mind, you're no less than a hypocrite," Anders said, turning to her.

_Alright, dispute about the fate of Thedas and mages all you want, but don't turn to me and attack, you prick._

"I'm sorry, did I say anything?" Hawke asked, narrowing her eyes and taking a step forward to mark her territory. "Don't attack me just because I'm not jumping and cheering for you like a princess all loud and sassy," she muttered, annoyed.

"Attacking you because of that does not excuse the objective statement, Hawke" Anders said quickly.

"Just like the objective statement that one should not merge with creatures beyond our physical world because it is unnatural and dangerous?" Hawke retaliated.

"I saved a benevolent spirit from being lost in our world and haunting every corpse he could get-"

"But he does corrupt your thoughts, does he not?" Hawke pressed.

The vein was quickly popping. "That's such a far-fetched term. He's one with me, yes, but he doesn't corrupt me. It's not like he's urging me to be evil and massacre everyone just because"

"Not just because," Hawke contradicted him in a low tone.

"He's a being that knows only what's good and what's right," Anders said plainly.

"As if we could trust the mere words that he's throwing at us," Fenris said with disgust.

"We can trust his deeds until they prove him to be otherwise," Hawke responded, becoming tired.

"The presumption of innocence and the trusting of it will be the death of you, Hawke," Fenris pressed firmly, only slightly heightening his tone as opposed to Anders who was quickly achieving the astounding results a female soprano would have only showed after years of thorough and persistent training.

"I'm not presuming his innocence, nor his guilt. I am still sizing him up, just as you are, but with more tact and objectivity instead of marching headstrong into beating him with a bat," Hawke replied, becoming more annoyed.

"And during that merciful process he has all the time in the world to betray you," Fenris said calmly, shaking his head.

"Do you think I have nothing better to do than work on evil plots against the world? Especially against a fellow mage?" Anders shouted, narrowing his eyes at Fenris and strangling him in his thoughts.

"Oh, I deserve special treatment just because of our probably one shared similarity? I feel so lucky," Hawke said sarcastically.

"I happen to be treating people for next to nothing, if you haven't noticed," Anders said angrily.

"I was never good at math, but, next to nothing is higher than nothing, right?" Hawke said, stepping in again. "You're doing it for something more than Justice's obsessive, well, desire for justice. You're also doing it out of guilt," she said perceptively, striking a nerve as she did so.

"I- last time I checked excessive altruism wasn't a despicable or evil trait in a man," Anders replied, eyeing Hawke with disdain.

"Excessive need or desire for anything is inevitably dangerous," Fenris said calmly, shaking his head.

"So that's your strategy? Everything in moderation? I'd hardly call freedom excessive for an innocent," Anders replied, boiling in desperation.

"Your kind of innocence is given retroactively, but that could easily change at any moment," Fenris strove to explain with a slightly heightened tone, because he was honestly trying to bring them back to his original point.

"Now wait just a second, there's a line – ", Hawke started angrily, but-

"IF ANYONE NEEDS ME, I'LL BE OUTSIDE GETTING AWAY FROM THIS FLAMING PITHOLE YOU MADE EVEN SHITTIER NOW," Varric's voice came charming as ever, monstrous even so, from somewhere and they all grew silent and looked down at him. He then proceeded to go straight out the door and slam it shut, leaving the three of them in a circle, speechless, realizing all the while they strived to make their points, no one was taking anybody's side.

"Then let's make it simple and straight to the point, shall we Hawke?" Anders demanded firmly. "Who do you agree with? What are you for? Senseless imprisonment or well-deserved freedom?"

Hawke stood there amazed at herself that she even agreed to take part in such a stupid conversation. Both her eyebrows were reaching out to Heaven. She froze for a second, then let the flames in her veins be felt, as she realized that Anders and Fenris drew the perfect living picture of the two extremes that brought no real answers, in all its splendor.

"Andraste's flaming buttcheeks, I don't agree with any of you!" she screamed and frowned. "Ugh, I need a drink" she said, reaching for the door.

"You can't just not agree with either of us, I'm a  _yes_ , he's a  _no_. If you're not agreeing with anyone then you're simply an  _I don't want to know,_ which makes you a hypocrite," Anders pressed angrily.

"The dogs bark but the caravan passes on," Hawke said nonchalantly, going for the doorknob.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Anders demanded, narrowing his eyes.

"Everybody's got opinions, but no one's got the answers," Hawke simply said and got out of the room.

 _Touché Hawke. Well put,_ Fenris thought.

They both looked at each other with disgust clearer than spring water.

"Oh, you're loving this, aren't you?" Anders said to Fenris.

"I'll assume an  _I don't know_  and spare you the urge to explode, as much as I'd like to witness such a wonderful gift from nature," Fenris stung calmly,going on one of the beds as he was sleep-deprived. Anders got out a simple  _hmph_  since he was out of insults and left the room to wander the inn.

**Sunset, Outside The Sunken Orlesian**

"Sooo… Sundermount seems very… mountainous today. Lots of … rock and... hillside," Hawke said to Varric as she got out of the inn and saw him sitting on a wooden chair from the porch.

"Madam, that's such an understatement even the wolves are howling in agreement," Varric muttered quietly.

"Wanna howl with me?" Hawke smiled warmly to Varric, sitting on another chair.

"Not until I'm drunk," Varric muttered rather sweetly.

"Well, we can solve  _that_  stinging problem," she said laughing and sighed heavily, watching the last bits of the autumn sun crumble beneath the rocky horizon.

"Seriously, Hawke, what's your deal?" Varric demanded with quiet discomfort in his tone. "Was Broody not enough to bitch at; now you're set off to inaugurate the Holy Trinity of the Insufferable and the Utterly Annoying?" He almost sounded fatherly for a second.

"I know you know I'm mentally deranged, but I'm not stupid. This is going to be the royal pain in my ass, if I allow it to continue," Hawke said, putting her legs under her while sitting on the chair next to the other side of the main entrance.

"I don't know how we're gonna survive this night all shacked up in one room. Forget Lowtown or Darktown, this is the real Void," Varric said grumpily and sighed.

"No one knows where the shoe pinches, except he who wears it," Hawke said rather serenely, watching the sky darken in all its might.

"That's why at court they have jobs like the king's nose picker or the king's toe scratcher. Much more practical," Varric mused sardonically.

"What I meant was, nobody can fully understand another person's hardship or suffering," Hawke said, as she kept watching nature paint the sky black.

"You mean more  _you_  than you mean them, am I right?" Varric asked, turning his gaze towards her.

"You think I'm going to tell you and spoil all the fun?" Hawke smiled, being grateful to have a friend like Varric. She had never had a real friend before, not one she could ever have the nerve to call as such, at least.

Varric knew there was something going out with Hawke, but it was too soon for him to sneak in and steal emotional confessions. Be that as it may, both Fenris and Anders triggered metaphorical demons in her soul that she might not have been at peace with yet, but in spite of that, he was suspecting she enjoyed barking childishly with Fenris, at least. It was her way of replacing her disdainful jerk of a brother with an asshole former slave elf who at least knew what he was talking about. Anders on the other hand, was just plain annoying and playing victim too much and he noticed she noticed, too.

"Say, bet you 30 silvers Bianca can shoot right into that beech hollow?" Varric said, easing things off with a friendly voice.

"I'll bet you 50 I can throw my sword into it on the first try," Hawke said confidently, smiling at him without so much as a grain of effort. Strange, but good feeling.

They both sighed in relief within, because it was clear for them, in silence, that their friendship was already in bloom and worthy of keeping, an honour most people would never have the privilege of feeling.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Inside The Sunken Orlesian**

Hawke and Varric stood in the doorway stunned and feeling more awkward than ever, as they saw Anders fallen down in deep sleep in one bed and Fenris  _probably_ sleeping in the other bed.  _I think it's safe to assume there have been no glowing eyes or magical fisting here, surprisingly,_ Varric thought. They looked at each other and shrugged, for this was a dire choice to be made in seconds.  _Who's the lesser of both evils?_ They both rushed towards Fenris' bed but Hawke got there first and she pushed him away, holding her tongue out in victory.  
 _Fine, Pantaloons, he's gonna magic-fist your heart out in his sleep, but who am I to argue? I'm just the funny dwarf that's sleeping next to a moody rebel drooling mage that might just be an abomination. Oh Mother, if you could see me now…_

* * *

 

**Sunrise, Inside the Sunken Orlesian**

The gentle rays of sunlight were darting through the cracked window of the room, swaying diagonally on their faces. One great branch with many other ramifications were trying to poke their way through the crack as the wind blew stronger, but without much success. A purple-throated cuckooshrike* was eyeing the branch as it flapped its wings rapidly through the morning air around the inn, crowning the sun.

(It's a very small subtropical climate bird that has no relation either to cuckoos or shrikes, apparently, but they resemble in their usual coloration of white, grey and black and sometimes they have crests like cuckoos, and respectively, cuckatoos do - yes it is important to the story!)

* * *

 

**The Fade (people not interested in a bit of philosophy skip this)**

"Stop that! I've had enough of your prodding, Father. No wait… I think… I thi- ahhhhh," Hawke shouted and smirked, pretending to become an abomination.

"Stick to swords, dear, you're a terrible actor," Malcom Hawke said calmly, laughing at his daughter.

"Oh? Did I just hear my father give me his blessing to pursue my," she gestured quotation marks, "useless and inappropriate dream of playing knight in shining armour?"

"I've never said that, dear. That was all your Mother," Malcolm corrected with a smile that could ease an army of hungry jaguars.

"I haven't seen you disagreeing, yet, either," she pressed with an edge to her voice.

"Hahah. Do you want me to tell you whose side I am on and spoil all the fun?" Malcolm asked with a grin.

"No. I'd rather you keep me in suspense my whole life, wondering if I disappointed you. That's always fun," she said sarcastically, proceeding to play with an iron longsword.

"The child is father of the man," Malcolm began to recite in an evermore wiser and melodic voice.

"Oh, spare me your Chant of Light crap," she quickly stopped him.

"It's not from the Chant of Light. It's from a poem by an anonymous," he explained with a smile.

"So I'm to lecture you then? You're just as uneducated in the eyes of the Maker when it comes to life and only through me will you understand? Or what? By that logic, I should go become a knight right now."

"You're not quite far."

She cupped her chin and gestured. "Then what? It's about time isn't it? The more you live the less you see what a child sees, so the more you fail to understand life because you're blinded by so many things? It's about that isn't it? Because you said there's a fine line between wit and wisdom. A grown man is wise only when he allows himself to regress!"

He inhaled and gave her a warm smile. "The closer you think you are, the less you actually see."

"Is that just rephrasing what I said or one of your subtle courtesies of telling me I'm overthinking it and I'm wrong?"

Malcom looked at her grinning.

"… Why tell me and spoil all the fun. Right," she said, sticking her sword in the ground. Bad thing. Never damage the edges of your sword just because it was that only one poor defenceless object you had to come across and express your rage at, instead of with.

"Let me tell you another poem, then."

"I'll try to pretend to listen, I promise," she utterly lied, as Malcom cleared his throat and started reciting.

"Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth-they never  
cease-they are the burial lines,  
He that was King was buried, and he that is now King shall  
surely be buried"

"Right," she said sarcastically, pretending … to pretend to listen, as always.

"The vulgar and the refined-what you call sin, and what you call  
goodness-to think how wide a difference!  
To think  **the difference will still continue**  to others,  **yet we lie  
beyond the difference** "

"True," she said, thinking about it.

"What will be, will be well-for what is, is well,  
 **To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well** "

"But it isn't well! Look at every unfair murder, at every man taken slave for nothing. Look at us… Or, wait, you mean… even if I fight or not, everything will always work out for the better?"

Malcom grinned and continued.

"The great masters and kosmos are well as they go- **the heroes and  
good-doers are well** " he recited, accentuating the last part referring to his daughter, no doubt. "The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and  
distinguish'd, may be well,  
But there is more account than that- **there is strict account of all** "

She frowned and pondered on it. "So it still matters… what I do. The purpose and the means through which…"

"Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,  
Whither I walk I cannot define,  **but I know it is good** ,  
The whole universe indicates that it is good,  
The past and the present indicate that it is good"

"So if this choice has presented itself… and it comes from me, too, then I should be a swordsman. Just as you meeting Mother was an indication that it was good to flee the Circle and have a normal life, like we do."

"The law of the  **past**  cannot be eluded,  
The law of the  **present**  and future cannot be eluded,  
The law of the  **living** cannot be eluded- **it is eternal** ,  
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,  
 **The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded** ,  
The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons- **not one iota thereof  
can be eluded** "

"Wait… I don't get it. You're saying there's no rule for who's going to suffer or know joy? That it doesn't ultimately matter what you… no, wait… It matters, doesn't it?  **Every good deed, ever so small, is not simply insignificant,** is it? Life will always continue, but it matters what you do, good or bad, they sum up somehow and have an effect on the world even if it seems insignificant… only in time-"

"Maybe you should become a philosopher, instead of a swordsman. I haven't seen anyone go so  **purple**  thinking on something," Malcom said while laughing. His daughter looked at him confused then drew a colossal frown.

"You did it on purpose!" she said in a perfectly accusatory tone.

"You're the only one of my children who listens," he said with a simple shrug and a smile. "But it wasn't without meaning, was it?" He bent in his chair to look at her. "Did you find your answer?"

"I find that you are a frustrating old man who cries for an audience."

"Well, there you have it!" he said, laughing.

"I also find that, you're wasting time telling me in riddles that you simply don't give a crap what I become as long as I don't get possessed or caught by Templars."

"That last bit I can agree with flatly, no riddles!" he said joyfully, waving.

"Charming. Any other lectures for today?"

"No, not for today" he laughed, messing her red hair up in a loving way "Although there was one fascinating manifesto from – "

He couldn't finish, as she rushed out the door. Sunlight burst through it … the warmth of the Fade untouchable as everything dissipated through the cracks and she felt her chest pulsating with fear.

* * *

 

The wind blew through the window gently, moving Fenris' bangs upon his nose. He felt the overgrown hairs make his face itch and frowned, halfway through waking up. The poor old bed was much better than the usual places he had to sleep on, so the warmth and comfort of the old mattress led him to sleep like the dead, making it harder for him to open his eyes. He moved his body slowly from the side proceeding to stretch and moved a lazy right arm on the width of the bed only to feel a soft bump that annoyingly blocked the path. His eyes opened instinctively and through the blur of the sweet weariness, a mountainous shape and a crimson red wave started to clear…

His eyes opened widely in a brutal second and he took his hand from a heavy-sleeping Hawke's chest. Tension filled up in his throat as he started to feel cornered in the bed between the wall and the other so-not-male body sleeping next to him. His head flooded with ways for him to flee as he felt his cheeks grow redder than Hawke's unnaturally-looking hair.

She started to stretch in her sleep and her left leg landed over his right one. He instinctively tried to get it from under hers, but it took him by surprise and it was too late. She may have looked like a fragile little woman with a poor ghost of a muscle growing out of her arms, but there was more than met the eye, it seemed, as the strength of her leg was enough to render him immobile. He felt tension boiling up even more, as there was no chance of getting up unnoticed now and flee for the inn bar or something. As her bare foot met his, the purple-throated cuckooshrike landed on the branch resting on the crack in the window and started singing. She opened her weary eyes in a split second and yawned heavily, still not realising the lengths of their positions and turning her head towards her merry clearly not uncomfortable at all bed-partner.

"If this is not a dream, I clearly must have done something terrible in a past life" Fenris muttered, having no other line that he could think of that didn't involve him screaming (in a rephrased manner by yours truly *the author*) :  _For the love of all the existing and invented gods, get your womanly shaped body away from my confused little brain, I beg of you._

"You have no idea how heavily I had to fight for this spot last night," she said in a sleepy voice, trying to break the tension she still had not felt, but predicted.

"I am certain I was quite the exhilarating prize for you that you had to fight so courageously," he said sarcastically, frowning to no end.

"Not you, Whitehead McBroodypants, the prize was the spot on a bed that didn't reek of spindleweed and deep mushroom from Manskirts over there," she said, pointing with her head at Anders, who was deep in sleep and hugging the wall with his face, while Varric was fondling Bianca and snoring like a ferocious bear in hibernation and almost falling from bed from how close he was hanging on the edge.

"Hm. Fair enough," he said flatly, looking at Anders, but feeling inadequate that he had to agree with the mage. "Should I give you credit for the additional second it took your little brain to come up with that charming pet name?" he stung sarcastically.

She ignored him, got up just a bit without removing her leg from atop his and looked at the crested little bird singing in the cracked window. "Hello you! Now where's your brother, I wonder. Oh there he is" she said sarcastically, turning her gaze to Fenris now. "Care to join in the trill? He seems so lonely over there."

"I imagine your sister,  _the red painted tree-shrew_ , was too busy to join in this morning," Fenris retaliated with sarcasm, adjoining her to another resembling bird species.

She would have laughed it off, but the  _sister_ part was confusing and was too close to an open wound, so she paused.

"Oh, just go crawl into a dark pit and die," Hawke muttered while getting her upper body up and realizing how the  _sister_ part made her unable to think of a witty line and instead made her say something stupid and unoriginal.

"I  _can't_ ," Fenris said, accentuating every consonant and frowning. "Your man leg is keeping me from venturing in that endeavor" he said mockingly while trying to sit up himself.

She looked at how they were sitting on their bottoms with his right and her left arm crossing and her leg tangled on top of his. She almost blushed and tried not to tense up.

"Well, well, well, Fenris," she said cockily. "It seems you have  _lost_ ," she said with a sudden air of triumph, grinning and turning her gaze from their legs to his bewildered face.

"I'm… sorry?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"It seems you  _have_ taken me to your bed," she grinned. "Well, to  _a_ bed, but still."

He was cornered, angry, on the way of blushing, his head was empty, rushing with boiling unfelt blood. He would have used the "I've taken you to  _a_  bed, not mine" argument, but she outraced him with that part, too, still standing with her statement, so he had nothing to retaliate with. He had nothing to say… and he had nothing to say. The critical seconds he couldn't spare to come up with something were saved, as he quickly realized he could use her vicious kink weapon against her.

"I haven't seen the bed breaking, so I haven't lost yet," Fenris said confidently in a deep tone, almost grinning but not succeeding, as he realized the great well-thought line he threw to unsettle her was almost failed by the open to interpretation  _yet._

"Yet?" She lifted her eyebrows. "My, so there is more to that argument."

"There is. I could simply grab you by the throat which will make you flinch and use that heavy force-wave magic on me," he gestured below chivalrously, "ultimately breaking the bed." He almost gave out a ghost of a smile for redirecting the conversation meaning so quickly.

He felt a different sort of tension, maybe because the harsh blood boiling distance they kept from each other with arguments was ceasing, yet  _not_  from the excruciating physical proximity between them. His sudden mention of her magic made him recall how the first and  _last_ time he had ever seen her use it was in his mansion when they first met. The unexpected absence of her magic use was probably deceiving him into feeling at ease with her, even respect her, making him forget almost every time the danger word  _mage_ was not present that Hawke was ultimately such a one.

She, also, felt a bit too at ease in their conversations of late, even while arguing. The last few times they fought, including the Tri-Contestant  _For or Against The Dangerous of Magic_ Championship debate from the night before, it seemed more that they came to agree in spite of their counterarguments, rather than the other way around. She didn't love magic, more than that, she kind of despised it, but ultimately was a bearer of the "curse" and that meant there was no way  _not_  to feel for the other mages. However, the universal truths that Fenris took no break in overly stating to no end were, in some respects, principles she harboured with determination. To sum up, they were more restlessly  ** _disagreeing to agree_** , than the opposite.

"Dear Sir, I don't need magic when I can just outrun your effort by grabbing your arm, kick my elbow into your chin and punch you in the stomach, all before I rest my foot on your grizzled head in victory," she said confidently, grinning to no end.

"So far I don't see you having three arms to manage such a strategy. I could easily get out of that," Fenris retorted, a small contained smirk up about his face in his turn for victory.

"Oh no, you can't," she said and grinned, looking toward his immobilized leg.

 _Hm. Good point,_  was all he could have said, as he had been clearly and viciously outwitted, but she saved him the "embarrassment" of admitting defeat and continued, "But let's not rush and make such hasty movements the first time we're in bed. Not before you take me out to, well, breakfast, at least." She removed her leg from atop his and quickly hopped out of bed on her feet.

Fenris watched her sway towards Varric and Anders' bed, then turned to look at the cuckooshrike bird which was chirruping still, as if it was making fun of him and his defeat.

Varric was now lying face up with his crossbow free of his hands on top of his belly. Hawke stepped barefoot, slowly and roguishly taking Bianca off him and placing it carefully away near the dying fireplace. Then she took one of Anders' therapeutic spindleweed leaves, which secreted a disgusting burgundy substance when someone, well, spindled it. She stretched the elastic leaves and started to tickle his nose with them and left them on top of it as she saw his hand move quickly to suckerpunch himself. He slapped himself heavily and the gross spindleweed syrup splashed all over his face, starting to reek of old cow.

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric?"

"You can kiss my effort to stick true in telling your story goodbye," came Varric's decisive voice.

"You're going to make me sound fat, aren't you?" Hawke asked with a sigh.

Varric raised a palm."Oho, Madam, that's amateur work. Just you wait. When I'm done bullshitting freestyle you'll wish I'd made you sound like the thing this weed stinks like."


	5. Not Ready To Face The Tiger

**Early Morning, The Sunken Orlesian**

"Ugh, did I get it all off?" Varric asked the group about the spindleweed snot, holding his jaws in different angles. They were all sitting at a table drinking linden tea after a good meal, all courtesy of Hawke and Fenris' surprisingly generous chipping in.

"You still have some right over there," Hawke said, pointing to her right jaw. Varric tried to scrape it off but she mimicked that he was failing. "Don't scrape it, slap it off, that's a damned sticky bitch, that one!"

Varric almost slapped himself, again, but quickly realised she was bullshitting him. He frowned and said ,"Watch it, Pantaloons, you're painfully crossing the line from annoyingly sweet to fiercely insufferable and very soon bout to be made the butt of Kirkwall's jokes."

She continued laughing and panting, almost falling from her chair. Fenris didn't like the way Varric threatened her, for some reason, and decided to redirect.

"I thought all dwarves had beards. Where's yours?" Fenris said insipidly, realising the uncharacteristic baldness of the dwarf's jaws.

"I misplaced it. Along with my sense of dwarven pride and my gold-plated noble cast pin."

Hawke listened while laughing, her head bursting with jokes on gold-plated noble cast knickers.

"I thought maybe it fell onto your chest."

"Oh-ho! The broody elf tells a joke!

"I don't brood."

"Friend, if your brooding were any more impressive, women would swoon as you passed. They'd have broody babi –"

Varric paused as Hawke fell off the chair from laughing.

"Well, not like that, but, there you go," Varric said to Fenris, who became even more confused and tried to help her up. They had never actually touched, not even in bed, not this time either, as she was fully armoured with dark splintmail and a bloody red veil around her shoulders and elbows.

Maybe he  _was_  brooding. He was just carefully, and with a bit of guilt, remembering the details of what happened half an hour earlier, when Varric and Anders started to fight over what was healthy on the menu and Hawke shook her head and turned back to the room to change. He didn't know that was her intention and barged into the room, for it was his intention to equip himself, too. He froze and became pale as he thought she'd be wearing next to nothing, but he fortunately, or unfortunately, caught her in the middle of finishing buckling her belt of many pockets. On the upper part of her body, however, she was wearing a simple blue wool top which clearly shaped the outline of her enormo–

"Maybe the elf actually darted you down and off the chair in his telekinetic fit of broody pique," Varric said sarcastically, making his old man laugh.

"So you're a funny dwarf," Fenris stated nonchalantly.

He remembered Hawke turning her gaze up quickly as he entered and grinning, assuming a very proud, assertive position.

"Well, well, well – can't resist grabbing my throat until after breakfast?" she asked sarcastically.

"Believe me, you wouldn't know it when I do" he said flatly, trying to remember why he came into the room.

"Is that a challenge? I would most certainly oblige," she said, gesturing a bow.

"If you're signing up for the challenge wearing only that, this is will be child's play for me," he said, smiling and stepping closer in the room and stopping at the maximum polite distance.

"Talk and more talk. I thought threats were only typical for mages."

"And what are you suggesting?" he asked angrily.

"Do you honestly care to find out? You might lose," she said grinning, knowing he would be confused about what she meant – that he would lose the duel or lose the  _other thing_ he solemnly vowed he wouldn't do in the courtyard of High Estate District.

He wasn't thinking at all, as the Maker certainly placed his brain in a different region that morning. He should have felt deeply uncomfortable, bitch at her for playing with him and proceed to walk away, but instead he locked his gaze onto hers and waited foolishly for, what? Some divine lightning to strike and wake him up, he suspected.

She eyed his chest plate resting on the floor next to the bed and he turned his head to it with a late response, as well. In a split second, they both rushed to grab it forcefully, but she outran him and took a hold of it.

"Or maybe I should reconsider my state of equipment, just to be sure," she said, looking at the plate.

"That is not yours."

"Finally mastered the grasp of the obvious?"

"I suggest you give it back before I- "

"What? Swoop over me and plunge your magical fist through it?"

"I don't need to do that," he grinned.

He quickly proceeded to grab her with one hand by the throat and with the other by the hip, using his elbow onto the chest plate to make her drop it. Sadly she foresaw every move, ducked down and rapidly stepped away.

"Strike one," she said grinning.

" _Venhedis femina,"_  he said in a growling low tone and stepped towards her quickly.

She hid the chest plate around her back and said " _Now that_ was a curse."

"I see you've mastered the grasp of the obvious, as well," he said angrily.

"I find it has been a necessity."

She slowly got the chest plate back in vision and tried to put it on her. Seeing as it was far too flat for her own chest, she sighed and gave it back to him.

"Maybe I should have gone for your sword, instead," she said flatly.

"I imagine it would be a nice change from that gigantic knife of yours you call a sword," he said, frowning.

"I'm sorry," she said, eyeing his green eyes. "It was an asshole move. I wanted to play a little, but in my butthead strategy I didn't consider the fact that I may strike a nerve, or two," she said, looking at Fenris and his vicious vein on his forehead that was ready to burst.

"Luckily for me, in this scenario, there is no chain to snap my neck back," he said bitterly and fastened the plate on his chest.

* * *

 

**Late Morning, Sundermount Dalish Camp**

"Uh, what's a shemlen?" Hawke asked bewildered, thinking of at least three jokes related to phlegm.

"It is the elven word for human," Fenris said, feeling ashamed to be of the same race as these proud fools who stuck childishly to their long lost past like a dragon guarding its treasure horde.

"It means you're not one of the People and you should leave," the Dalish funny-looking armoured elf said with a slur.

"And here I thought we would all go back to my place and have tea."

"I'm not repeating myself, shemlen. Begone"

"Alright, but, unlike you, I'm only going to say this once, without contradicting myself. You are impertinent and very proud for someone who's going to come looking for me when your keeper curses and banishes you from the clan for kicking out the one bright light that saves your asses from Ashma'beta-something. So, don't come, please, I'm terribly busy and my temper is  _shorter than you_ "

"A shemlen? I thought you would be an elf."

"I lost my pointy ears to this gentleman over here. He needed something to divert attention from his other freak-show qualities," Hawke said, looking at Fenris. "Do not look directly at it; it bites when it doesn't bark," she whispered intentionally louder to the Dalish elf to mock him and Anders laughed.

 _Exactly so. As long as I don't bark, I will bite you, if you keep this up,_ Fenris thought.

* * *

 

**Still late morning, Inside the Dalish Camp**

The Keeper was sweet, but weird. She saw a light in Hawke, as if she were an angel coming straight from the Maker and she actually heard her by listening to the trees and the wind and whatever else this crazy old woman ranted about. Then Fenris remembered Hawke's sarcastic answer to his prodding of what she was seeking as a mage :  _You of course! Don't you see?_   _I'm your guardian angel!_ The Maker did have a curious sense of humour, that much he was sure of.

Although fun and games aside, the Maker's delightful rain of humour turned to  _spit_  as he learned the incredibly nervous and much too  _I'm-helpless-come-to-my-rescue_  elf girl was a mage, herself and almost hit him several times with her filthy staff misfires.

"The Keeper didn't mention you were a mage," Hawke said and coughed, trying to get up from the ground.

"I imagine it's hard to give away something that nobody wants," Fenris said as he tried to help Hawke up, frowning and accentuating the last words with disgust visible from the darkest pit in the Deep Roads.

Hawke immediately shoved her arm away from his attempted grip and got on her feet by herself. She narrowed her eyes at him and he felt inadequate and ultimately stupid for instinctively trying to help her. He was bashing on mages while helping one up. Of course she would crank up over what he said, his choice of words were poor and far-fetched and whatever other adjectives she would use to make her point.

"You're welcome to go back to the city and be rid of our unwanted presence any time now," she said aggressively.

"Our? You hold the power as well?" Merrill asked bewildered. "But you have a sword! And armor… and- I'm sorry, I shouldn't presume, as I said I haven't met any humans before," she said nervously, lowering her gaze and tying her hands together like a scared child.

"It's alright, Merrill. I'm the anonymous sort. The swearing off magic and wielding swords to punish myself kind," she half-bullshitted, trying to ease off the tension.

"I –, " Merril tried to say something, but wasn't sure exactly what to.

"Just watch where you cast those spells," Hawke said assertively, as her fall lied in her hands.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to… I've done a little fighting before, but it was always alone. I'll try not to hit anyone! On o-our side I-i mean!"

"So, this elves of old story, tell me more. I happen to love stories. Hawke, care to join?" Varric said, stepping towards Merrill and breaking the ice.

Behind them, Hawke, Anders and Fenris were keeping colossal distances from each other. But Anders seemed awfully invisible in spite of his snarky comments revolving around Fenris being in seventh heaven around so many mages. The other two were striking angry glances at each other through him. She thought, however foolishly, that if she turned back to the ritual arguments and aggression, he would ease off and start barking his usual way. Half-seriously, half-sarcastically. Their last individual encounter left her bitter and guilty. Teasing him to that extent was the worst possible move she could make, but she couldn't help it. It was like a dance she never knew but animated mechanically, as if by a puppeteer.  _It's official – my jokes, as well as my tactics, are coming out of my ass now. Rest in peace, Hawke, we will all miss you,_ she thought as she pictured Fenris pushing his sword into her, from the front. He was not the kind to backstab. He had some sense of honour, unlike her flat butt of a head.

In the cave, they kept their distance and fought independently. As they climbed up a set of stairs, two skeletons emerged and each dueled one of them. It suddenly turned into a race for who gets their rival first and neither Hawke nor Fenris shied away from putting on a show. As she was getting ready to strike a deathblow, Fenris struck his, but then quickly scythed into her skeleton as well.

 _Oh you're gonna pay for that, elf._ What was he even doing? Trying to set her off and beat him when this was all over? That was certainly what she felt like doing.  _That_ was certainly what she was going to do.

* * *

 

**Noon, Dalish Graveyard**

As the little elf girl cut her wrist and opened the barrier, Hawke felt the Veil shift and assumed a defensive position. They all followed Hawke's actions and Merrill flipped, raising her palms in the air in sign of peace and pointing out she was not possessed or anything of the sort. They eased their weapons down.

"Blood magic? Foolish, very foolish," Fenris said calmly, but boiling inside at the ridiculous sight.

"Are you out of your mind?" Anders shouted.

"Yes, it was blood magic, but I know what I'm doing," Merrill said with fake confidence.

"I beg to differ," Hawke said sarcastically while raising her eyebrows. "You just summoned a demon, but don't worry folks, she knows what she's doing! It was all a misunderstanding ; we'll laugh about this later!"

"Demons are just spirits, like honor or joy. It's not their fault they are what they are," Merrill said assertively.

"Ignore the tiger. Not its fault that it's going to eat you," Fenris said mockingly.

"I don't give a rat's ass that it's not their fault. You're looking at the wrong one to excuse here," Hawke said aggressively and frowned,"The shame falls solely on you for going down that path."

"If I had piles of lyrium around I would have used that, but I didn't; I used what I had."

"I'll have to remember to use that! I had no lyrium around, so I had to use my blood! What a dandy solution," Hawke said angrily.

"Seems more and more that your leave wasn't voluntary," Fenris told Merrill insipidly, narrowing his eyes.

"You may disagree, but that I don't mind. I stand by my choice of action. And as you can see, I haven't gone insane or deformed."

"Yet," Fenris finished her sentence bitterly.

"Let's just get this over with, this is useless. It's like trying to explain ants to an elephant," Hawke muttered shaking her head.

The combat in the graveyard put the lid on the boiling pot. Hawke was angry, Fenris was angry, Varric was deeply annoyed, beating mobs with his crossbow and ultimately falling, Anders was unconscious, Merrill was misfiring like crazy from a distance. As they fought right up to fatigue, more skeletons came out from the ground. Despite wanting to keep their distance, the two warriors had to team up closely to lure the horde into one battalion ready to be severed in four.

And while all that seemed fine and dandy, a big entropic purple cloud was cast onto the group, by no other than the misfiring Merrill. Hawke tried to step away from the cloud, like Fenris should have, but she watched in astonishment how his lyrium glow started bursting black shadows and he screamed in pain. The mystery of whether she felt pressure in her chest because of being drunk when they met, suddenly had been eluded. His markings were deflecting magic attacks and torturing him in the process.

She rushed into the cloud and tried to push him away, but slowed down right in front of him as she felt her mana being drained. She had no use for it, why would she stop? Out of fear he would attack her and she wouldn't have any means to escape, now that she was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion? Bullshit. She had to trust that he wasn't going to turn on her now.

"Get back!" she screamed and pushed him. He growled in response and ignored her, going back for the horde. What was he thinking? He was surely low on energy, what was he going to do? Scream his lungs out in pain and hope the nice little skeletons and the newly summoned shadow warrior would get emotionally touched and back away in mercy?

Hawke couldn't think. She always took care of her companions, she had to do what was best for them, when they were too stubborn to back away, in his case. She closed her eyes for a second, swallowed heavily and charged into Fenris, throwing him right into a gravestone.

In the blur of black, blue and purple, he watched Hawke being overwhelmed by the horde. She was nowhere to be seen, as the group formed a circle around her. His mind was all fumes, as he tried to sit up and march into when he managed to stand on his feet, a colossal army of powerful light beams swirled through the ribs and cracks of every skeleton, dismembering and annihilating everything in sight. Hawke was now visible with her hand on the ground, getting up and striking a deathblow to the last shadow warrior.

Fenris' head was full. He had nowhere to begin. First that witch casts her not so friendly fire around them, then Hawke marches in him and throws him away and lastly she turns into a sphere of waves and massacres everything. He was wrong, he had something to begin with. He got up again and charged his way to Merrill, grabbing her by the green cloth around the her neck and pushing her against a tall gravestone.

"Are you done killing us or did you wait for the last moment to summon your demon and finish the job?" he shouted at her, turning his lyrium glow on.

"I'm sorry, please, I didn't mean to-" Merrill screamed in terror as he was preparing to plunge his fist into her heart.

" _Asschabs_ ," they heard a low husky voice say. He looked to his right to see Hawke holding her throat while fallen down on her front. She coughed and her head met the ground.

They ran to Hawke and turned her face up. Fenris looked around and saw Varric limping towards them, then looked at Merrill who he concluded did not know any healing magic.  _Of course she wouldn't,_ he thought. The abomination was nowhere in sight. Seeing as she coughed before passing out, he thought her lungs filled with fluid from the entropic cloud, so the only thing that could be done was to dispatch her from the breastplate and push on her chest until she spat it all out. He pushed three times, but was stopped by a voice shouting behind them.

"Get away from her now," Anders said and sat on his knees, preparing his hands.

"Do you think I'm going to trust an abomination to save Hawke?" Fenris asked pointlessly, as he knew Anders was the only one who could effectively do it.

"Yes, try motorboating her with your hands. That will certainly help," Anders said sarcastically.

"Just do your magic and shut up," Fenris muttered angrily.

Before Anders' hands started glowing green, Hawke's eyes opened quickly and she started coughing up blood.

"Astonishing. It did help. My hands must be magical," Fenris said sarcastically to Anders.

"Right, you saved the day. Let's all cheer for the mighty Fenris."

"Andraste's flaming butthole, could you stop arguing for one second when nobody's unconscious?!" Hawke shouted, trying to get up, "Aw, for the love of-," she said looking at her bloody top, "I had just washed it this morning."

The Flemeth witch who was neither a common mage nor an abomination was the icing on the cake to a perfect day full of blasphemous mages. He escaped the worst possible nightmare just to wake up in the belly of a dragon, full of scorching magic and filth.

As they walked back on the old path, Fenris started to calm down. He understood that the dragon witch saved Hawke's family and this was a debt that had to be paid, however. As long as Hawke didn't have to sacrifice her blood, she wasn't to blame for this ridiculousness. Then he suspected that Hawke's pushing him away was intended as a means for her to cast her spell. Which meant  _she knew._

"So, care to indulge my curiosity, Hawke?" Fenris said while catching up with her brooding head as they went down the mountain.

"Care to get out of my face?" she asked sarcastically … and mechanically.

"My apologies. I shall endeavour to exist with less offense," he muttered, returning her sarcasm.

"What did you want?" she sighed, walking down the path.

"I had a thought," he began, already sensing the next line.

"Just the one?"

"Yes, indeed, just the one."

"By all means, then."

"So, harbouring a demented abomination, a naïve blood mage and setting off a millennium old witch from a seal out into the world."

"Does this pointless enumeration go somewhere or were you just exercising that grasp of the obvious from earlier?"

"I'm just wondering what your next choice of recruit will be. Seeing as we've covered both human and elf mages and since dwarves don't wield the power, I'm thinking you should consider a darkspawn next," he said sarcastically, half-heartedly hoping she would find it funny.

"I was thinking more on the verge of not collecting any more stray dogs, since that seems to be my speciality," she said aggressively, including him to the pile of freaks.

"An excellent choice," he said, closing the conversation. He felt the homicidal glare she gave him and decided to back off for now.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you're breaking inside, Snowflake," she half-shouted sarcastically, realising he might have silently taken offense.

"I assume that is to be my new pet name?"

"Don't you have a daily word limit to care for?"

"I seem to have crossed my limit and lived."

"Right. Then get used to that name."

"I shall try. I suggest not holding your breath."

"Maker forbid I sink that low."

"I'm … sorry?"

"The fool that thinks himself to be a wise man will always remain a fool. But the fool who admits his foolishness is a wise man, _"_  she recited in a nonchalant but forced tone, pacing quicker.

* * *

 

**Afternoon, Fenris' Mansion**

The sleepless nights Fenris had foreseen coming in that empty and immense mansion, while still there, became few in number and to his surprise, did not involve thinking about Tevinter. Of course there were some thoughts, mostly in eternal vigilance for bounty hunters, short flashes of whips against his back and rotten peas whenever he would eat freshly bought food from the Hightown Market. Apart from that, however, his thoughts were distracted, in all the splendour of the term.

Now that he could tell time again, it had almost been a week since Sundermount and the numerous incidents it harboured, during which Hawke had not made any more suprise visits. He sought to refrain from going to Lowtown, probably because the Maker had still not found the proper location to put his brain back in. He felt inappropriate and guilty, instead of being angry.

But why was that? There were too many questions darting at his head. He started to realise he and Hawke were bitching at each other to keep the conversation going, rather than anything else. He enjoyed the freedom of being snarky and sarcastic, as much as he enjoyed listening to her arguments. The real and angering debate over magic had only been held when Anders started it at the inn and to his surprise, she had not taken the mage's side. More than that, she had not sided with either of them. Now that he started to analyse the last month in Hawke's company, Anders was wrong – she was not a hypocrite. She was an example to all apostates, one who dedicated her blood and sweat to help people and more than that, while developing skills the common man could, disciplined in the art of physical combat, in detriment to her magic. She was living proof of a mage who was not weak and who strove to be more than what she had been born with.

Judging by her sudden outburst of anger at Sundermount, he suspected the reason had nothing to do with his disdainful comments, as he first thought, but with herself. The ridiculous debate, the blood mage, the misfires of that blood mage, which forced her to use magic, as everyone else was down on the ground. Her almost complete lack of using magic betrayed a curious predicament – her noble, yet stubborn desire to be immune to her powers. If Tranquillity didn't take emotions and ultimately, humanity, along with her magic, she would have gladly signed up for it, he suspected.

Hawke's frustration on the battlefield was evident. It became clear to him that she was ready to sacrifice herself rather than lose a teammate. Her pushing him away was not just so she could successfully cast a spell, but also to save him from marching into his death, as she saw his health and stamina were low. Hers were just as well, but she had another serpent up her sleeve. Yes... serpent. She could try to lead a life free of magic all she wanted, but it was still a last minute means for survival. Even so, she would always be susceptible to the danger of what she was. She would always be on the verge of becoming an abomination. All it took was one slip. Still, it became hard for him to imagine Hawke betraying her principles. It seemed too far-fetched as of late, to picture her as the mages he had seen all his life.

He would have gone purple from "brooding" if not for Varric, who came by his mansion to check if he hadn't, as he put it, "followed Hawke's advice to crawl into a dark pit and die".

"So, what do you do in this gigantic house of yours all day?" Varric asked awkwardly, looking around the messy room.

"Dance, of course," Fenris said flatly and sarcastically, leaning next to one of the windows which spat sunlight like a beacon.

"Really?" Varric asked eagerly.

"I run from room to room, choreographing routines," Fenris said, gesturing towards the entrance.

"You're actually joking! Alert the Chantry! They need to put this on the calendar," Varric said amused.

Fenris smirked, "And you thought I was always serious."

"Hm. Now I'm sorry Hawke's not here."

"And why is that?"

"If she were here, before you know it, she'd make you dance around this whole mansion for real."

"I highly doubt that."

"You'd be surprised how easy she can convince you to take on a challenge. Made me lose 3 sovereigns not too long ago. Actually convinced me to bet I could resist dragon's blood whisky. Didn't turn out pretty. I thought I was gonna end up wearing those pantaloons, but she had something else in mind."

"I'm afraid to ask what became of you."

"Believe me, when it was over, I really wished I'd been wearing those pantaloons. I tell you, Hawke's really a merchant's worst enemy. Mother of all tricksters from the underworld."

"Did she turn you into a woman?"

"Oh-ho, no," Varric laughed, "although that was actually Junior's punishment once. I, on the other hand, ended up proposing to her dog."

"Is that the reason I heard someone gossiping in the market today that Hawke was born with both male and female genitalia?"

"Oh, I really didn't think that one would catch on," Varric laughed.

So that was it. Fenris looked out the window, then turned his head back to Varric, "I take it the merry band of misfits have moved on with the usual insane escapades?"

"Sadly, not at all. No one's seen her for days."

"Oh?"

"I'm thinking you gave her the brooding epidemic. It's either that or you two got in another one of your mage fights and someone got killed. You're here, so," Varric gestured, frowning.

"So you thought you'd pay me a visit and see if you don't happen to walk over a body."

"Hey, don't judge me for being cautious. It's not like you haven't thought about it," Varric said, "Am I right?"

"Not to that extent, no," Fenris said, frowning. Even if he had once, the thought was long gone now.

"My mistake then. Say, you play Wicked Grace? I could use a replacement for Hawke."

"One that can lose for a change, I suspect."

"Bah, you wound me," Varric gestured sarcastically, "I play fair and square. Bianca wouldn't allow it any other way."

"The way you fondle your weapon is disturbing."

"Hey, I'm a perfect gentleman. In public. So, you coming or what?"

"Hm. Tempting. Forgive me one moment, I should check with Gwendoline first," Fenris said sarcastically, going for his sword.

"Holy Mother of Green Cheeses, you're joking again."

"I hope you're not that impressionable at Wicked Grace. You might end up regretting your choice of replacement."

* * *

 

**A little after sunset, The Hanged Man**

"This is ridiculous. How do you do that?" Varric asked Fenris in amazement as he lost to him again.

"I suspect it is beginner's luck," he said, smirking.

"Hmph. And here I thought I'd have some fun for a change without Hawke's calculated mind or Isabela's constant cheating," Varric said putting his hand to his forehead.

"Have you really not seen her at all?" Fenris asked while carefully masking his concern.

"Like I said. She hasn't crawled into some abandoned pit and died. I went by her house several times and her mother said every time that she was taking care of some errands, whatever that means."

"And it hasn't crossed your mind that she simply gave up leadership of this merry band?"

"Great Ancestors, no! If I know one thing about Hawke it's that she wouldn't give up the one good thing in her life."

Fenris raised an eyebrow, "One good thing? Us?"

"No, me," Varric said charmingly. "I'm the one who makes her laugh when she isn't telling the jokes. I'm useful that way."

"I highly doubt that's the reason she constantly requires your presence."

"Ah, and there it is. You'll understand when you grow up a little more, kid," Varric said in a fatherly voice.

"Exactly how young do you think I am?" Fenris asked half-angrily.

"Seeing as you can't grow a beard right, I'd say young enough."

"Elves don't grow beards."

"And here I thought you shaved it off in a fit of broody pique. Dwarves grow beards, but I don't. Do you seriously see yourself a representative for your charming race?"

"No... Well, fair enough."

"I thought as much. Besides, I wasn't meaning your age, as much as I was going for the obvious reality that you haven't had a friend your whole life," Varric said while shuffling the cards.

"Am I supposed to believe that you have? Seeing how much of a socialite you are, I sincerely doubt you actually bonded with anybody."

"You're right. I rarely have. But Hawke's not just anybody," Varric smiled while dealing the cards.

"So this is not just a charming act to get into her good graces? To ensure she watches over your back in the expedition, that is."

"I think you've already noticed yourself she doesn't take preferences when it comes to watching over people's backs," Varric said, raising and eyebrow and obviously pertaining to Hawke's most recent choice of saving Fenris' ass.

"I was merely curious as to why you consider her a friend," Fenris asked nonchalantly, looking at his hand. He had one song of autumn and one of twilight, a knight of mercy and a serpent of sadness. Two songs meant a middling hand, if he remembered correctly. If Varric didn't have more matching cards, the game had a faint chance to be won.

"Kid, I could write a book about all the reasons I already consider her a friend. Actually, I'm already on it," Varric smiled, "but that's for later. Her story is just beginning," he grinned, discarding a dagger card.

"Right. I'm certain it has nothing to do with her clearly not at all fascinating predicament," Fenris said suspiciously and sarcastically, while drawing a card.

"You're no less a freak than she is and I'm not writing stories about you. But sure, who wouldn't be fascinated by her fierce bravery-"

"Getting cornered and recklessly charging into enemy hordes."

"Always there to help-"

"Getting overly involved in the affairs of others."

"Stunning good looks -"

"Man legs and hair of blood, or should I say, clown -"

"Oh, I see what's going on here."

"Pardon?"

Varric laughed softly, "Nothing. Like I said, you'll understand when you grow up."

"Can't I simply take note now and save it as a memento for when I do, whatever that means?"

"Alright, kid. You see, when a boy and a girl reaaally like each other-"

"I can already tell this isn't going anywhere pleasant," Fenris said frowning.

"Oh, I beg to differ," Varric laughed, "Ah, whatever. The Angel of Death. Show your hand."

He didn't even look at the last card he had drawn. Varric's comment made him feel uncomfortable and a bit of a fool. Whatever he meant exactly, it had to with him liking Hawke, which was farther from reality than unicorns were. He looked at the card. The Knight of Roses. As red as blood and autumn, he thought.

"Andraste's ass, how do you do it?! Two songs and two knights and a lousy serpent that I could have had instead to win!" Varric said angrily as Fenris was smirking. "This is preposterous. Where's my lucky charm when I need it."

"Isn't Bianca your lucky charm?"

"Bianca's my a lot of things when it comes to luck, but not at Wicked Grace lately. She seems corrupted by a certain... redhead. I swear Hawke mustn't have been bullshitting about her being a former blood mage seeking atonement."

Fenris stopped breathing, "What did you say?"

"Well I just signed my funeral… Ugh, just hold your homicidal glowing fist tendencies for a minute," Varric said while raising his palms in the air in sign of peace, "I was just kidding."

"But she did say that," Fenris said striking a frown.

"She was just making fun of us for prying in her not-using-magic business. Don't go all insane and " _I knew it! I told you so!",_  elf, she's got enough on her plate," Varric muttered starting to frown himself.

"I suppose… that's true," Fenris said flatly, feeling that unjustified guilt coming back to bite him.

"You suppose?" Varric raised an eyebrow, "Don't think no one's been listening to your constant mocking and barking at each other, as annoying and insufferable as it is. Hawke isn't actually disagreeing with any of your arguments."

"I'm sorry, I must have blacked out the few hundred times she mockingly discarded each and every one of those arguments," Fenris said, frowning even more.

"Exactly. She isn't biting at the tiresomely universal truths you spit at her constantly. She bites because you bite her, personally. Do you see where I'm going with his, or do you need a bit of growing up for that one too?"

"No. I think I understand," he admitted awkwardly.  _The closer you think you are, the less you actually see_ , Hawke's voice vaguely echoed in his head.

Varric sighed, "Look, I know you've been through worse than any of us at the hands of those mages, but it's like you take it out on her, in spite of being the one who helped a considerable deal to get your freedom, mage or no mage."

"I'm not. I -"

"You might not be, but it certainly looks that way," Varric said, playing with the deck of cards. "Eh, it's just a whole lotta fuss over nothing."

"You don't seem to be assuming any side on this  _nothing_ , indeed."

"It's a lot of humans in skirts. I get them mixed up."

"I highly doubt that. The subject comes up all the time."

"Hmph. Tell me about it."

"And no opinion? One way or the other?"

"Opinions are like testicles. You kick them hard enough, doesn't matter how many you've got," Varric said grinning.  _The dogs bark but the caravan passes on. Everyone's got opinions, but no one's got the answers,_ Hawke's voice came back in his head.

Varric put the deck of cards down and said, "Anyway, I'm all out of money to donate to the Annual Brooding Championships. Same time tomorrow?"

"I'll consider it," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"Oh, quit your act. You love it," Varric said grinning.

" _I_ said no such thing," Fenris smirked.

Varric set to leave for his room, but stopped his pace and looked back at the elf, "If you -"

"You'll be the first one to know," Fenris said knightly, understanding what Varric was asking.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, On the way to Hightown**

As he walked out of the Hanged Man, Fenris started recalling Hawke's face and the way she looked peaceful with her sometimes green, sometimes brown eyes and red strips of stubborn bangs in them. Up until the point of drawing an unexpected charming grin, a grin that said she knew what you were thinking, even if it wasn't so. It had been more than once that he felt transparent, in spite of all his "cockatoo" defences. However, most times it wasn't intimidating, but reassuring. He started to realize how much of his thoughts he was leaking through all the things she made him say and in turn, she almost never let anyone see what she was thinking. In fact, the two or three times she leaked any hidden part of her personality was in the courtyard of High Estate District when he prodded her, in Gamlen's house when her brother accused her of a certain death and lastly, at Sundermount. Three times she allowed herself to become transparent, but in vain, for he didn't understand the nature of those hidden thoughts, at least in part. He  _thought_  he understood as much as Sundermount went, but it was a small link in a huge, inevitably endless chain.

A small link... he started to think deeper. Nobody had seen her at all except her mother, which meant she didn't want to be found and she had been in Lowtown at least once. Where would Hawke go to take care of her "errands" and feel at ease? Darkspawn trees, he remembered her cracking a joke in the courtyard all the while he felt like strangling her for making fun of a dire situation. She wanted to smell trees, because Kirkwall was crawling with more stone, marble and filth, than any kind of nature. But she wouldn't go to Sundermount now, not after all that happened there. It would be unwise for her to go anywhere outside the city alone, as well. Unless she took care of that little inconvenience and let that annoying mage accompany her to collect his stupid plants. He tensed up as he pictured what he started to appreciate as a great and honest woman walking down a path with a possessed mage that was lying through his teeth every time he wasn't talking about magic. No, Hawke was no fool, she had noticed that, unless she chose to ignore it in the process.

Everyone knew how much she loved the mountainside. There was no way she would go the one place people would suspect she did. Mother of all tricksters, as Varric said. There had to be another small link. As he climbed the endless stairs in the dark towards Hightown, it hit him.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Inside the Amell Estate**

As Fenris made his way through the old cellar underground, he almost got his bare foot crushed by a trap. Luckily for him, Varric's voice had made a habit of coming into his head every time he walked on such territories.  _If you want to keep your boots, or in this case, feet, stay still and don't make any loud noises_. He had to give her credit for making sure no unwanted, particularly enslaving presence made their way in. He proceeded further in absolute silence and got all the way up to the door leading to the main hall, which was curiously left open, allowing faint threads of light to creep in. He walked slowly inside, as Hawke was no fool to mess with rogue-style. She would be slitting his throat in a split second, had he not been careful. But his efforts seemed to be useless, as he saw the fireplace burning red and an immobile figure sitting in one of the armchairs. He swallowed heavily and decided he would keep a reasonable distance as not to be attacked and announce himself.

"Hawke?" he asked in a moderate tone, as he walked in an angle reasonable enough to let him see who was sitting there with a big cloth on their lap. It was her, indeed, slumbering like the dead with her peaceful face and hair that couldn't get any redder from the light of the flames darting at her. He remained petrified, not knowing what to do next. Luckily, she started to move in her sleep and slowly opened her eyes. She flinched in surprise at the sight of the ghost that he was.

"Andraste's rotten tits, Fenris, if I wanted to see your face every time I woke up I would have asked you to marry me," Hawke said in a startled voice.

"Now wouldn't that be the icing on the cake to a perfectly insane world I'm already living in," Fenris said calmly, taking a seat in the other armchair.

"Oh, it can go even crazier than that. Don't forget, I would be the one kneeling," Hawke said in a serious voice. Fenris lost his train of thought and remained silent, "I'm just shitting you," Hawke started laughing.

They both remained quiet for a few seconds and looked at each other. She pinched her thigh under the old cloth that was covering it to ensure she wasn't drunk in the Fade or something.

"So, why did I have the feeling you would be the one who'd figure out where I was hiding?"

"I was merely following your advice to crawl into a dark pit and die, and then," Fenris said sarcastically and gestured towards her, "look who decided to follow their own advice."

"I'm an inspiration to us all," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Evidently so," Fenris said calmly, looking at the fireplace.

"Did Varric send you to look after me?"

"Not precisely. He did express his concern. My effort was voluntary, however," Fenris replied flatly.

"Well, you found me. Time to go report back."

"I have the feeling you're not very eager for others to know of your whereabouts."

"You have feelings?"

"I'm certain this piece of news has come to you as most fortuitous," Fenris said sarcastically.

"You're right, I want to be left alone," she said bitterly. Fenris raised an eyebrow and prepared to sit up and leave her as she requested, "Not now, Ser Cockamerry Broodsterson, in general, for the last few days."

"You should really give me a weekly notice in the mail for every new charming pet name you keep giving me," Fenris said flatly as he sat back in the armchair, deflecting from asking the real dire question he wanted to for a week.

"Ah, but if I gave you notice, I'd be spoiling my own fun," she said grinning. A speck of light was dancing on her face as she looked down, forming the next line carefully in her mind.

"Go ahead, ask your question before you implode and shatter my future home," she said sighing.

"I'd rather not pry," he said eyeing her shyly through his hair to see her raising an eyebrow, "more than I already do," he finished giving away a faint smile.

"I'm humbly granting you permission to pick my brains," she gestured chivalrously.

"Alright. What have you been doing here this whole time?"

She frowned and sighed, "Oh, come on, that's your big question?"

"I prefer to slowly build up to the earth-shattering one."

"Oh, thank you for your thoughtful concern that I might break."

"You're not made of glass, but still."

"What?"

He deflected with a smirk, "I have simply found a new way to annoy you."

"That's surprising. I'd take you for someone who grows roots wherever he cares to sit."

"That's a job for the Archon. I usually run, as you may have noticed."

"It's taking you quite the time to run from here, however."

"Again, she deflects," he said frowning, pertaining to how artfully she turned a prying man's weapon against himself.

"Deflecting yourself by taking remark of my deflection," she said nodding. "A most practical move. Are you sure you haven't read the Ferelden Art of War?"

She sighed, "I've been coming here to restore the mansion, as little as I can.  _Minrathous die uno non aedificata est_ ," she recited courteously.

"Minrathous wasn't built in a day... How did you-?" Fenris asked while being stunned to no end.

"It's just a famous saying. That and  _Quidquid arcane dictum, altum videtur_ ," she recited sarcastically.

"Whatever is said in Arcanum seems profound."

"At least they were honest about that."

"You saved those carefully to catch me off guard and deflect. I will not allow such mischief. Continue."

"I've answered your question. You should ask me another before you make such hasty judgments."

"Did you hide here out of a guilty conscience?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're restoring the mansion, a pretence to hide, no doubt," he said calmly. She was preparing to say something, probably a sarcastic comment to distract him. He quickly continued, "Not only that, however", he said assertively. "A voluntary but unnecessary act of kindness, to compensate for something. After all, it's your mother who wants the estate, not you," he said calmly and watched her immobile face leak anxiety. He looked at her through his white hair, "Am I wrong?"

"No, by all means, continue postulating your theory."

"Sadly, I don't have many leads to make a proper hypothesis."

"Then sadly, I'm not telling you."

He smiled, "Fair enough. Let's see," he started, assuming an assertive, detective-like posture. "You've only used magic twice since I have met you. Both times, it has left you bitter and angry."

"Oh, but only one of those times there was a parasitic variable, as in you accusing me of being a mage."

He grinned, "So only one of those times. The other one was genuinely and purely set off, I take it?"

"Continue," she said plainly, deflecting.

"Then there's a mysterious death your brother had accused you of. Not only that, there seem to be more, as you told him so aggressively that you kept every death with you, as I recall."

"Right. Go on," she said, trying not to flinch at his remark.

" _Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta_. A guilty conscience needs no accuser. The only question is, what do you feel guilty of."

"And that is ultimately your earth-shattering question, I take it."

"Indeed," he said calmly, watching the flames.

"If I told you I don't know myself, would you consider it enough to let this go?" she asked, giving away a ghost of sadness.

"Only if it is true."

"It is. But you can figure it out, yourself, if it itches you so much," she said, crossing her arms and resting them on the old cloth on her lap and staring blankly at the fireplace. She wasn't ready to face the tiger, but she could indulge him with only the end-game of the story.

"I'm ... sorry?"

"You know I came here from Ferelden to escape the Blight, yes?"

"That much I am familiar with, yes."

"The darkspawn won the battle at Ostagar, in the south of the Wilds. My brother was there."

"And you couldn't go yourself because they added mages and Templars to their numbers."

"Correct. So the horde marched along the Imperial Highway and overrun Lothering, the village we lived in. We would have run much sooner, but no one was leaving without Carver. We waited."

He listened to her carefully, not foreseeing the outcome, "Alas, the horde arrived and we couldn't wait any longer. Fortunately, we ran into him just outside Lothering. We had to fight our way out of the massacre, but we where outnumbered by far."

"Were you forced to use magic then?"

"No. I dispatched the enemy groups with simple open field strategy. Attack is the best form of defence. They thought we were fragile and weak and we let ourselves appear so, until striking the unforgiving deathblows."

"Well-thought, indeed."

"I know my stratagems," she laughed softly, but quickly turned sorrowful. "Anyway, I was cocksure and impulsive back then. The moment I started fighting, I fought for the Invisible Best Warrior Championship Cup. That's one of the reasons my brother can't suffer me."

"You were _more_  cocksure and impulsive?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Ho, ho, ho. Yes, I was, as unbelievable as that sounds. Anyway, I was managing a group of a dozen and went a bit farther away from my family. Then...," she paused bitterly and looked down. He didn't understand. Her mother and brother were both alive and well.

"A mighty ogre appeared," she gestured sarcastically, "and my sister charged off into it. It caught her and smashed her on the ground repeatedly. She died on the spot," she said with a low disgusted tone. Disgusted of herself, he suspected.

"You had a sister," he said, more to himself, thinking out loud.

"I did," she said bitterly, accentuating the past tense. "I let her charge into an ogre and I let her die."

"You didn't blame the tiger for trying to eat you - I see."

"I didn't think it was my fault at first, even if my mother made sure to blame me every step of the way to getting to a ship. "I was too much of a coward to think about it."

"But it wasn't your fault. You couldn't have foreseen her making -"

"No, but I could have made sure that it didn't happen," she half-shouted angrily.

"Had you not distanced yourself from the group."

"And had I used a simple force spell to outbalance that damned ogre."

A part of the mystery was starting to emerge, but not in whole. She felt guilty for not saving her sister, for not using the magic she stubbornly refused to all this time, but then again, why would she turn angry and bitter when she had used it to save him and the others twice? Was not using magic a means to correct her past mistakes? He felt confused and inappropriate for prying into her grief, so he decided not to question her about yet again,  _another_  paradox.

"I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose a sibling," he said plainly.

"She was a sweet girl. Not like me. She'd walk into a room and bring sunshine with a single smile. We did have something in common though, she was quick-witted and proud. You couldn't mess with her, despite the weakling image she posed. She didn't take shit from anybody, not even me."

"Then I think I would have liked her," he said calmly.

"Oh, no. It would have taken you quite a long time to reach that point, seeing as how she was a mage."

"At least you weren't alone in your struggles," he said flatly. She paused in amazement to his remark, "I'm beginning to understand why your brother is such an - "

"Ungrateful ass, who is ultimately right?"

"Where was he when your sister charged off then?"

"It doesn't matter. We may share the blame, but it doesn't excuse the reality that I should have known better."

He eyed her hands as she gestured and quickly suspected another reason she crawled into a dark pit to hide.

"That fire... it's roaring quite impressively for the little wood that remains," Fenris said while looking at it. She picked up his remark and smirked.

"Caught right in the act. You're clearly not so dumb as your armour presents you."

"Say what you will about my armour; I keep my observational skills as sharp as my blade", he said flatly, grabbing his sword that was resting against the armchair.

"Well, honesty is the best policy."

"So you came here to practice your magic."

"As it appears I am forced to use it sometimes, I might as well ensure I cast it right and I don't wake up killing any of you," she laughed bitterly and looked down. "It's really much harder than it looks."

They both looked at the fireplace in utter silence. "I don't want your pity," she said, assuming a defensive position.

"Even if I did pity you, I'm the wrong person to grant you sympathy."

"Because we're not so different, you and I? In the domain of not wanting pity, that is," she said, assuring him that she wasn't engaging him in some emotional exchange of  _Oh we're so alike, yet we're fighting so much!_  remarks.

"Exactly so," he nodded courteously, beginning to understand they were more similar than just in that particular domain.

"Well, you're quite a special package, Humpback McGrizzledoodles," she said, grinning and coming back to their usual exchange of snarky comments.

"You're not so bad, yourself," he said almost smiling, but stopping, realizing what he had just said.

"Did the legendarily mage-despising Fenris just admit to not hating such a one?" she asked eagerly, gesturing at the ground-breaking news.

"I will deny making any such statement should I ever be questioned about it," he quickly said courteously and grinned. They rested in amicable silence, letting the roaring fire sing its song on the burning wood.

* * *

 

**Afternoon, The Hanged Man**

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric?"

"Please tell me you haven't made a baby with Broody in there," Varric said half-sarcastically half-concerned.

"I'm sure your spies would have informed you of that, seeing as how you already know where I was."

"You think I'd let them charge right into their deaths? I'm not poking dragons when they're sleeping."

"Then I guess you'll just have to wait and find out in about three to four months," she said smiling.

"Oh, Sweet Ancestors...," he said putting his hand on his forehead.

"Cheer up, Varric. I'm alive and well! And probably adding a new member into our merry band of freaks," she gestured sarcastically. "Let me buy you a pint and we can forget about this racket."

"Yes, please," Varric said sighing. "Wait, you're just trying to distract me from asking what in the Void you have been doing in that mansion all week long."

"I had an appointment with a lone rat. He seemed terribly lonely."

"Did that rat have the impeccable manners of a lord and the beautiful white hair of a nymph in heat?"

"You know he came after me just yesterday," she said frowning and looked down. "So, what you have you been doing without me?"

"You mean other than moping in my new socks and losing my money to the Broody?"

"Replacing me so quickly, I see?"

"I'm regretting it already. The elf didn't know jack shit about Wicked Grace and he still managed to win every time. I tell you, there must be something going on with the stars lately."

"Does that mean we're not going to play now? Oh, come on, you whining weasel, you don't lose to me every time," she smiled warmly.

"I suppose lucky is worse than smart or cheating."

"Thank the Maker! I was beginning to think you were going to cut me off," she said sarcastically. Varric looked down for a second. "Look, I'm sorry for disappearing like that. I needed some time alone."

"Apology rejected," Varric said sarcastically, masking his concern. "Now where's that pint you promised?"


	6. Luring The Tiger Out Of His Mountain

**Afternoon, Outside Kirkwall, _3 days before the Deep Roads Expedition_**

"How did you manage to escape your ghastly kidnapper? Kick to the groin? Sand in the eyes? Rock to the head?"

"Who, Kelder? No, he let me go."

"Well, that wouldn't be my first choice, were I an insane killer."

"No, don't you see? The demons made him do this. He's innocent!"

"I'll have to remember to use that, too. A demon made me do it!"

"No, please don't hurt him!"

"If he strikes, I'll try my best to remain a statue and let him kill me, I promise," Hawke said sarcastically to the elf girl. "Your father waits outside. We took care of the spiders. Go on, now. Time is wasting," she said, sounding like a true general.

As Hawke, Fenris, Varric and Anders got into the killer's lair, they remained petrified at a most curious sight. The killer explained his plight, that the Circle claimed he wasn't possessed, yet he kept being animated by demons who wanted to torture and murder elven children for being too beautiful.  _Maker's putrid whore of a bride, I'm not getting paid enough for this,_  Hawke thought.  _Bullshit, I say it just for the expression, I don't really care about the coin here._

She knew what this man was suffering from, at least she thought she did. Before she could make a decision, Fenris stepped in and asked her to grant him permission to kill him, as he required it.

Hawke's first response was to form a barrier with her arm between Fenris and Kelder.

"You may not," she said firmly.

"Are you really going to let this abomination get the chance to escape again and murder more children?" Fenris asked in a fit of uncontrollable anger.

"No," she said sharply and plunged her sword into the man's chest. "Now we're done here."

"Uh, forgive me for asking, but I'm not seeing the sense to why you couldn't just let him do it. It would've been less bloody and gory," Varric asked Hawke in confusion.

"If Fenris killed him, he was doing it out of blind hate for his kind," Hawke said, putting her sword back into its holder.

"Yes, and it was clearly blind and unjustified with so little proof that we had," Fenris said sarcastically and frowned.

"Oh, it was most justified," Hawke said firmly, without turning her head back to face him.

"Then what in the Void is your problem?" Fenris half-shouted angrily.

"The purpose of killing him was the same, yet the reason was different," Hawke said pacing quicker through the caverns. "I killed him out of mercy."

"He was going to die, either way, what's the p-" he started in a raging tone, "Bah, you're impossible," Fenris shouted at her, gesturing in frustration.

"The Circle was probably right. You think they'd let a walking abomination be judged under civilian law?"

"He was a mage, he could have easily been an abomination. That was as evident as the clouds in the sky and your giant clown mage head," he continued shouting.

"Would you have testified on that presumption under oath? Swear that he was clearly possessed."

"Well, no, but -"

"But nothing. The voices in his head were his own demons, just like any other deranged non-mage serial killer," she said flatly and continued pacing quickly.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, Darktown, _2 days before the Deep Roads Expedition_**

"Make him talk," Hawke said aggresively to Fenris as the slaver approached them to clap them in irons.

"I can do that. Gladly," Fenris said calmly and proceeded to grab the man by the heart carefully, without crushing it. It took him years to develop the skill not to simply kill when using this ability. And it made the sight all the sweeter. He counted up to five and let him fall. The slaver told them immediately where he stashed Feynriel and asked if he could go.

"Sure," she said sarcastically, "Oh wait, I meant - no."

They wiped the open field clean from the horde and found a note with the exact location of the cave.

"Looks like they took him to some hideout on the Wounded Coast. I wonder if that's near the Injured Cliffs? Or the Limping Hills? Massive Head-Trauma Bay?" Hawke said sarcastically, waiting for a response. They all shrugged and moved forward. "No? Just me?" Hawke said sighing.

"I'd say you're the one with the head-trauma," Fenris finally commented and realized Hawke said the same thing at the same time with him.

"Ah, Fenris. Why do you always fall into my traps? I thought you would have known better by now," she said grinning.

"Seconded," Varric said, almost appearing as if he placed a bet with Hawke on it.

" _Fasta efutue femina",_ he muttered to himself, annoyed.

"That's quit a lot of 'f'-s in one sentence," she said mockingly, having overheard his faint swearing. "Are you pertaining to a certain equivalent in the common tongue that also begins with the letter 'f'?"

* * *

 

**Late Morning, Slavers' Cave**

"You would have let him kill me! He had a sword at my throat and you - what if you were wrong?" Feynriel asked in desperation of the after-shock.

"I'm never wrong," Hawke said with a warm smile.

The boy was clearly the luckiest and unluckiest victim of fate altogether. He begged Hawke to let him go to the Dalish to solve his nightmare problem. Hawke was reluctant and tried to reason that the Templars would come for him and claim they had jurisdiction over him and they could claim him into their custody, but Feynriel was determined to try, no matter what. She looked at him and sighed, understanding that it was in his and the safety of Kirkwall's best interest to let him mend his potentially dangerous abilities in a place that had the proper knowledge.

"Uh, at least if you go nuts-out with the elves, you won't be killing any of us," she said awkwardly, trying to ease things off.

"Thank you! By the Maker, I would never, in my wildest dreams - Thank you so much," the boy said gasping in relief.

"Just, do me a favour and don't take any quick naps before you reach the camp, yes?"

"You bet," Feynriel said laughing.

"We should go and tell his mother what became of him," Fenris butted in flatly.

"Oh? No comment on my most enraging and unwise decision?"

"I don't support your decision, but I'm not disregarding it either. It might be his best option, considering your Circle."

"What the  _what_?" she asked, almost becoming mute.

"They would cease the first opportunity to make him Tranquil or kill him... if he is indeed plagued by demons in his sleep, one can only imagine the danger he would become to us all when his life is threatened."

"I... wow, I have nothing to retort. We agree at last," she said in amazement.

"Don't count on it becoming a daily thing," Fenris said half-grinning.

"I wouldn't wish that for the world," Hawke replied sarcastically.

* * *

 

**Sunset, The Hanged Man**

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric," she said, in a slightly different way than their usual inside joke of exchanging salutes.

"You're doing it agaaain."

"What?"

"You're staring viciously at the table like it ate your whole family," Varric said a bit concerned.

"Don't you have a game to lose or something?" she asked bitterly, forgetting that she had cards in her hands herself.

"Oh, my manners," he said mockingly, putting a hand over his heart. "I should have just stayed quiet and played along. It seems Bianca's crawling back to me again whenever a certain redhead is distracted and  _brooding,_ " he said, accentuating the last bit.

"By all means, then, play away," she said, looking back at her half-empty pint.

"Ah, why do I never learn?" Varric said, more to himself and went back to his game."Hit me, Junior."

She stared blankly at the table, deep in thought.  _Why do_ I  _never learn?_ she asked herself.

"Hawke."

"Wha?"

"Are you... folding?" Fenris asked her confused, still keeping his cards away from sight.

"I -, oh, no, not a chance," she said, assuming an assertive position. She forgot she was even playing with him.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked flatly, almost not believing that he did.

"Genuinely concerned over me?" she asked sarcastically, drawing another card. She had one serpent of avarice, a song of temerity and a song of mercy and two kights, of dawn and ages.

"Will wonders never cease, right?" he said nonchalantly, drawing a card himself.

"Huh, tell me about it. I keep thinking if I pinch myself I'll wake up in the privacy of  _my own_ bedroom in Lothering and this was all just a bad dream," she said half-sarcastically.

"So is that the cause for your 'brooding'?" he asked, grinning at how she practised the same thing everyone restlessly mocked him about.

"Maker, no. I'd be crying in Varric's bathroom if I ever thought about that," she said,  _maybe_ sarcastically.

"Then what is it?" he asked calmly, not giving away his impatience as he felt the Angel of Death card making its way to the top of the deck.

"It's just... I just let him set himself on fire," she started bitterly, "like sacrificing a goat for the undergods."

"It was his choice," Fenris said plainly. "He said it himself that you deserved honour for it."

"He said that I knew of certainty and borders and that meant I was closer to the Qun that I cared to admit," she said frowning.

He laughed very very shortly and softly, as it never happened. "He hadn't seen you in one of your good days. He would've certainly changed his mind."

"He was right, in part. I agreed with his way of thinking, up until the point of choosing to die, because otherwise he couldn't just deny his own role, he couldn't choose 'not to be'," she said keeping her frown and looking down at the homicidal table. "He puzzled me a bit. Touched a nerve or something, more than I cared to admit. As far as 'to be is the only choice', in whatever way. What if I don't know my actual role? Should I just blindly submit to the certainty?" she asked looking at him, pertaining to his particular "certainty" that mages were dangerous and would ultimately succumb to a demon's offer.

"We cannot choose how we are, even if our plight has been given onto us by others," he said, meaning his own predicament as well. "We must answer for our own burdens, whatever they are. That still means being free to choose within that role," he said, drawing another card. His lucky card.

"So by the logic of the Qun, what am I?" she asked seeming genuinely haunted by the thought.

"By their logic, you would not be a woman, to begin with," Fenris said smiling a bit.  
"I'm not a woman in the eyes of the Qun?"

"You would be. But they would certainly pick their brains and explode at the sight of a mage who fights as a warrior and who also still has hips womanly enough to bear children."

"What the  _what?_ "

He sighed, "In short, you would have a role that does not yet exist in the Qun."

"To fight and defend? Isn't that a simple enough role?"

"In my opinion, it would be the only role worthy enough," Fenris said nonchalantly, "I don't follow the Qun, so as I said, I wouldn't know," he continued, holding the Angel of Death card without realizing it.

"Great," she said bitterly. "Show your hand."

She frowned at him, as she saw that in spite of her middling hand, he had four knights. "Now how is it that you  _always_ get the Knight of Roses?" she asked suspiciously.

"Must be something in the stars," he said calmly, remembering Varric's remark.

* * *

 

**Noon, Starkhaven Mages Hideout, _1 day before the Deep Roads Expedition_**

"What the hell was that?" Hawke asked Fenris as they walked inside the cave.

"I'm ... sorry?"

"Back there, just a minute ago."

"I don't follow."

"Right. You must have missed the part where my jaws landed somewhere in the dwarven thaigs when you gave me the most genuine bright smile in Thedas."

"I don't recall any such act," he lied, almost grinning. If she could play with him and deflect everything, he could do it too.

"Haven't you all seen him smiling at me?" she asked Varric and Carver.

"Nope," Varric said flatly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to pay attention to what your elf may or may not have done while making sure the Templar didn't figure out what you were," Carver said sarcastically.

" _My_  elf?" she asked in outrage.

"Yes, indeed,  _her_ elf? I seem to have been knocked out when she suddenly claimed me as a pet," Fenris said to Carver frowning and feeling the urge to spit.

"Not like that. Ugh, let's just focus on the potential blood mages we might be facing up ahead, shall we?" Carver said shaking his head.

"Seriously? 'Twas just me?" Hawke asked awkwardly. "You're very frustrating, you know that?" she said frowning at Fenris and leaking out her annoyance. Then it hit her he was bullshitting her to make herself transparent without realizing it.  _Oh, it's on, elf. No one bullshits the bullshitter,_ she thought, as she felt him grinning from behind.

Decimus had attacked them without even waiting for a second to let Hawke explain herself. She would have gladly arbitrated between the scared fugitive mages and the Templars, but the stubborn fool left her no choice.

As the corpses rose from the ground, she shouted directions to her companions. Having three scrapper warriors in the party was certainly not a proper strategy against a mostly ranged enemy group. Carver stubbornly refused to tank anything and Fenris was too much of a go-straight-for-the-heart kind of fighter to do the same. This was a dire situation in which she had to take additional time that she didn't have to come up with a proper strategy. As much as she stood by her decision not to take Anders along, since he would probably turn into Justice at the sight of the endless injustice of the Templars and go shit-crazy killing everyone, she regretted her decision  _juuust_  a little.

She screamed at Carver to go straight for the skeleton archers.  _Always go for the archers first._ Varric was supposed to duck down and make sure he wasn't getting hit by any spell, or they would have lost their one advantage of surprise critical hits coming out of nowhere. At last, she didn't have to tell Fenris anything, he nodded at her in understanding, turned his glow on and distracted the mages with his bold appearance.

Hawke had to think fast now. Three two-handed melee fighters was much too imbalanced and there were too many possessed corpses around. Then she remembered one of Kind Calenhad's old stratagems that ensured him victory in his duel with Simeon, the Arl of Denerim, at the landsmeet. He kept drawing the enemy's attention to a certain body part that appeared as a weak spot as he faked being wounded, so the arl kept focusing on it and consequently, Calenhad foresaw his moves and used it to disarm him.

It was a simple tactic of using a logical paradox to solve another paradox. Too much of something created its complementary. Combining excessive melee force with the strategy of striking a surprise attack as the enemy followed them thinking they figured them out already, was going to make them win the fight.

Fenris was already luring the mages into focusing their attacks on him. As he ran through the narrowest of paths, the mages couldn't fire at him properly, so they were forced to follow him like fish after sparkly things in the water. She issued Carver to follow them from behind and strike a few down.

Then she whistled at him to come back to her and help her sever the skeletons that she successfully taunted into encircling her, all the while she gestured to Varric to duck under the upper level and throw a miasmic flask from nowhere into the horde. When he heard footsteps under the wooden platform, where the mages were being lured, he came back in sight and whistled at the mages.

"Hasta la vista, Manskirts!" Varric shouted and shot an arrow into Decimus' robe that made him stuck to the wooden platform. He shot a few burning arros into the platform after.

Hawke then shouted at Fenris "The closer they are! -" ,  _the less they actually see,_ he remembered and went like a ghost through them, startling them in pain and disappearing from sight. She used the few seconds they were mesmerized to put her hand on the ground and issue a gigantic forcefield that quaked the wooden structure, causing it to collapse.

They all went into the remaining live bodies and shattered them in seconds.

"You, you killed him! Oh Decimus, you should have listened to me, love," a woman said startled. "I saw what you are! How could you murder one of your own just for daring to defy the templars?" she asked aggressively.

"Do you think he brought those skeletons to life to serve me tea?" Hawke asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

"I warned him. I told him once he marked himself as a blood mage that's all anyone would see."

"Are we supposed to believe you had no part in his actions?" Fenris asked calmly in suspicion.

"I swear to you. I have had no truck with demons. Please... We only want our freedom. Without your help the templars will execute us all for Decimus' crimes."

"Right and then you run off and get targeted all your life and one day you'll just wake up say  _Hey, why haven't I used what Decimus did, anyway. It looked so cool... Might as well try, if it's my only option!_ " she said sarcastically.

"I have already made myself clear that I am not following him down that path," she said pleading.

"Then why don't I believe you? Maybe because I smell the Law of the Least Effort when I'm standing right in front of it. Men always leap over where the hedge is lower."

"Are you serious? We only want our lives, not to put on shows!"

"I also know that dying people are liars. They suddenly wish to be nicer, open orphanages for kittens and fugitives, donate to charity and be more appreciative of what little they have, in this case your freedom," Hawke said assertively.

"How could you be such a hypocrite? You're no Circle mage helping the templars on official business, that much is clear."

"Lending light to the sun, I see? Of course I'm not a Circle mage, but I don't need to be one to know blood magic is a vicious epidemic. As far as I'm concerned, I'm barely even using my charming magical talents, as you may have noticed," she said sarcastically.

"If you try to turn us in, do not think those  _charming magical talents_  will go unremarked. Do not doubt that the templars will let an  _extra_  apostate share  _our_ punishment," the mage said in a calculated threatening voice.

Hawke swallowed heavily, as she felt Carver step in to defend her.

"And what's your strategy then?"

"There's a templar outside that is waiting for us to come out. Kill him and buy us time to flee Kirkwall."

"Great, we start running from templars only to turn back and kill them now," Carver said in desperation.

"Yes, let's murder a templar," Fenris gestured with his arms in the air, "surely that would help," he said sarcastically.

"Oh, just a little murder? Is that it? Uh, no," Hawke said firmly.

"Then lay down your arms. I'm trying to save our lives, not throw them away. We will come with you," the mage pleaded calmly.

"I'll make sure the way out is clear," Hawke said bitterly.

Hawke had to think of a good way to ensure those mages weren't going to be killed on the spot. As Thrask put it, the other templar leutenant searching for them was vicious and unmerciful, a great crony of Meredith.

"An interesting tactic you did back there," Fenris said catching up with her.

"To put out a fire by placing more wood in," Hawke said smiling.

"You thought they'd be distracted by their outnumbering ranged advantange to our melee offense, I take it."

"That is correct, indeed, my good man," she said courteously, trying to think of her new line of strategy. "And you were the clown that lured them like the graceful dance of the leopards' tail that attracts the curiosity of naïve gazelles.  _To make the enemy climb into the attic, only to take away their ladder."_

"You do know your stratagems," he admitted, giving away a faint approving smile. "You used your magic," he continued, as his curiosity wildly strived to be satiated.

"Yes, a most unexpected coup-de-grâce, don't you agree?" she said proudly, in an easing voice.

"I suppose that was yet again another stratagem?"

"Indeed. When they think they figured all your moves out, you swoop from nowhere with another kind of attack they are clearly not ready for. To disturb the waters in order to make the fish emerge. Or to beat the grass so the snake comes out..." she said enumerating sarcastically, "Or to lure the tiger to come out of the mountain," she grinned at him.

"Very nice," he admitted.

"I thought you might like that last one."

As they walked towards the exit, he suddenly realized Hawke knew her stratagems almost too well. As in, not only using them in battle, but also in conversation. He had to sit down later and think about it carefully. At least that last tactic was clear to him – she was gracefully and successfully luring him out of his dark nest in the mountain, where he would otherwise start catching roots.

* * *

 

**Late Afternoon, Outside the Cave**

Hawke was evidently pissed off by the denigratory remarks of the templar, but that only made things worse for her. Who was she siding with anyway? She thought to herself how silly it was that she had to involve herself in situations where she didn't even know what the right thing to do was. As the templar stated his homicidal intentions clearly and the mage pleaded in fear for mercy, Hawke flipped.

"They deserve a trial, Templar," she said firmly.

"Meredith says no rebel robes are going to preach to the tame ones."

She had to find a way to convince him. Thrask would have helped a lot right now, if he had the courage to speak his mind.  _To cross the sea without the sky seeing you._ Shit, how was she going to use that in this case? Only if...

"Rebel robes, as if they had a choice in the matter, the Circle burning down and all," she said sarcastically. No, she had to appear firm and determined. "The real matter at hand here is that a certain blood mage whose head I just severed kept these mages by intimidation. Against him they were merely kittens hissing at a gigantic puma. We went in there to settle things peacefully, but the blood mage didn't even hear us out, he attacked on the spot and  _these ones_ didn't even lift a finger. Were I an insane rebel robe, I would have fought with the leader, even succumbed to the easiest way of offense and turned to blood magic, too, but they didn't, they didn't even fight along him and the other blood mages. Is that not enough for you to call for a trial or are you trying to abuse of your position?" she said assertively, taking a step further towards the Templar.

"She's right, Karras, the Order clearly dictates that apostates forced into fleeing at the fault of natural or man-made disasters are to be granted asylum in a neighbouring Circle. Without evidence of practicing blood magic, you cannot stretch this," Thrask said to Ser Karras, heightening his tone.  _He finally decides to speak,_ Hawke thought, being annoyed.

"Ser Templar, you seem like a descent man. I have to place the fates of all these mages in your hands," the female mage said sorowfully.

"I promise to do everything I can to protect you," Thrask said courteously.

"Don't count on him being too long to protect you, Sunshine. Let's go," he commanded. He stopped at the sight of Hawke and said, I'm watching you."

She tried not to swallow heavily from fear that he figured her out. As she looked at her companions, she saw everyone almost turning purple for the same reason.

* * *

 

**A few hours before sunset, On the way back to Kirkwall**

"Please don't do that again," Fenris said to Hawke while catching up with her.

"Do what? Oh, almost get caught by Templars?" she asked, without seeming to be put off by the recent event.

"Evidently," he said, frowning.

"Well, since you asked so nicely," she said sarcastically, putting on a fake smile.

"You are too willing to march headstrong into things you do not understand," Fenris stated calmly.

She almost flipped at the sound of those words. They were more familiar than she cared to admit. More so, that her father was the one who kept telling her that.  _You march head-front into things even when you don't understand them,_ her father's words echoed in her head.  _How long before it comes at the expense of others?_

"Oh, bugger off," she muttered angrily. It was amazing how she got unsettled every time she was faced with something that reminded her of the people she lost. Like a fish emerging from disturbed waters … or a tiger being lured out of its mountain.

"One day you will not be so lucky," he said flatly, moving along with her.

"And you will come along right in there with me, Fenris," she stated firmly. "Don't think your luck will be eternal by relaying on Team Hawke to fight your battles with that attitude," she said sharply. She had stripped him down to his birthday suit, completely bare in his intention to stay with her despite their disagreements, because he knew when the day would come to face his former master, she would undoubtedly fight.

"I was merely giving you advice," he deflected calmly. "Do with it what you will."

"Like you followed my advice to crawl into a dark bit and die? I suggest you stick to it."

"As the Official New Arbitrator of Hawke vs. Fenris, The Impending Dynamic Duo That Annoys Everyone Daily, I'm calling a recess," Varric said sarcastically.

"No need, Varric, we are done here," she stated plainly and paced quicker.

That unreasonable ridiculous frustrating and  _impossible_ woman. All the while he thought they were coming to an accord, she'd bite on his behind and make it even more difficult. What did he do know? Question her decisions on mages? He must have been unconscious on the ground and muttered some "rude and impertinent" comments on mages in his sleep, because as he remembered it, they agreed on the last few events quite honorably.

As they walked their way to Kirkwall, Varric and Carver were discussing their most recent Wicked Grace fiascos, as Hawke kept silent the whole time.

"I shit you not, Junior. I solemnly and alas, most fortuitously swear I had no idea that Broody wasn't bluffing," Varric gestured, as he was telling the story in the most graphic way possible. "You, elf are one lucky son-of-a-bitch."

"Again about the Wicked Grace game?" he calmly asked while sighing.

"I sincerely thought you were bulshitting the Void out of me. I was sure you had a hand full of nothing."

"So was I. You were the one who pointed out I had four serpents."

"See? Luckiest bastard I've even seen."

All that talk about luck left him bitter, making Hawke's words echo like spears in his pointy ears. Would she really leave him defenceless because of his  _attitude?_ His fugitive side got the better of him. Perhaps it was a mistake to put all his trust into a woman who probably didn't even care for him. Even if she did help all the stray puppies in the rain. He was no dog to be carried around in her errands and be mocked incessantly by an impossible mage. For all his efforts into convincing himself Hawke was something else, maybe she just wasn't.  _Mundus vult decipi._ The world wants to be deceived.

"Is brooding a sport in Tevinter? Do they hold competitions? Hand out trophies for the best scowls?" Varric asked sarcastically.

"I'm – not – 'brooding'," Fenris said in annoyance, pronouncing every word aggressively.

"Moping, then. You seem to be a champion at it."

"I'm perfectly content at the moment," he lied right through his teeth.

"Oh, so that's you smiling? Glad you clarified that, I'd never have known."

He would have given Varric a sincere friendly pat on the back, for his sarcastic prodding finally made him fathom out the  _RIDICULOUS_  tricks she lured him into, yet again. No doubt to make him brood his eyes out.

She was using those carefully thought stratagems to make him think something she wanted him to think. There was no real threat that she was announcing to him, it was again, one of her master of arts way to divert attention from her own "demons".

What was it then? She was using his own weapon against him, perhaps? Trying to impose pressure on his situation to make him feel guilty? Lure him into a trap of his own doing, by trying to get closer to her, she pushed him away, perchance. Or did she simply threaten not to help him and  _create an image of a lot of imbalanced melee force to hide her vulnerable, inevitably soft spot, her endless need to take care of the people she loved._ Well, not just the ones she loved, as he was evidently not a member of that pack, but anyone who deserved her protection. As much as his little brain could ferret out, any other person would have probably ended up climbing one of those cliffs nearby and howl their lungs out in desperation. But in spite of his head almost colossally imploding and spilling his brains all over the road, he kept his calm, nonchalant appearance with a master's tact.

* * *

 

**Almost sunset, Inside Kirkwall**

As they passed through the city gates, Varric started asking about what they would be doing tonight. Hawke, as always, proceeded in her sarcastic deflections and didn't give out any plans. Carver eagerly joined in on Varric's proposal to play Diamondback. Fenris suspected his losing streak at Wicked Grace convinced him it was time to fall back on a game of his ancestors, one in which he would certainly win.

Marching into Hightown Market as the merchants were packing up their goods and prepared for closing, they climbed the stairs and took a turn for the town square.

"Now wait a second, who dusted off those crests?" Varric asked curiously, as he looked at the Amell Estate.

"I'll give you three guesses," Fenris said sarcastically, leaning on the wall of the estate.

"You really ought to forcefully slide your ass into those Deep Roads tomorrow, Hawke. This mansion would only be a summer house for you with the coin that could pour in for us," Varric said while looking carefully at the Amell crests.

"Well, you know me, I disavow any other way of entering the Deep Roads," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Chuckles chuckily chuckled in the Chucklesomely … District," Varric mocked her in a friendly way.

"Oh, come on, Varric, any entrace would do, unless a dragon's sitting in it," she said smiling.

"I think I'm turning into a psychopath. Is it wrong of me to wish an ogre is sitting in it so I can finally see you in legendary action?" Varric asked sweetly.

"You take what you can get, as long as it's not a dragon," she shrugged warmly.

The way Hawke and Varric talked so easily and brightly was most disturbing. Not because it was an ugly sight, but because Fenris couldn't figure out how they were pulling it off. Perhaps that's really what it meant to have a friend.

"So, I'm giving away a free pint for the one who can beat me at Diamondback tonight. Rest assured, my money will be safe," Varric said charmingly, while grooming his jacket.

"Guard your coin like a dragon does its treasure all you want, you're gonna cry when this is over," Carver said smiling.

"I'm not so eager to approach anything even remotely resembling a dragon tonight," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Suit yourself, Miss," Varric said, while starting to pace forward again.

As Hawke started to walk herself, Fenris quickly moved from his leaning on the wall and blocked her path.

"Hawke," he said flatly.

"Grizzled elf who's breathing in my face," she nodded and returned the salute.

He stood there unaffected by her sarcasm, carefully forming his next sentence. "I was thinking of finally baptising the mansion. Alas, such courtesies need a dignified witness," he said politely, feeling stupid for the way it came out.

"Well, don't let me disturb your thinking," she said, preparing to start walking again.

He almost sighed and eyed her through his hair, "What I meant was, I am inviting you to accompany me in this … endeavour," he said and rolled his eyes at the last bit.

She laughed at his awkwardness. "Well, sure, since you asked so nicely."

"Hawke, are you coming or what? My pants are seriously screaming to be taken off – _not_  in that way, though, I'm spoken for," Varric shouted from a distance, watching the two of them suspiciously.

"I'm sorry, Varric, it appears this gentleman over here is desperately requiring my expertise in a dire matter," she shouted from afar sarcastically, pointing to Fenris.

"As long as you don't make  _that thing we don't want to find out in three to fours months,_ by all means, wound my feelings and go with your broody friend," Varric shouted back sarcastically.

"Thank you ever so much for your understanding," she bowed chivalrously.

"Just be here in the morning, 7 A.M. sharp, capisce?" Varric said in a general or maybe fatherly voice. "I'm not going into the Deep Roads without my trusted partner."

"He'd have to chain and gag me before I even consider not showing up," she said smiling.  
"Think bigger," Varric shouted, disappearing in the night with Carver.

She turned to Fenris awkwardly. "Well, this will be interesting. Are you going to baptise the house with your spit?"

"I had something else in mind," he said flatly, giving away a ghost of a smile in the dark.

* * *

 

**Sunset, Inside Fenris' Mansion, _The Night Before the Deep Roads Expedition_**

As Fenris politely opened the door for Hawke and they went inside the dark hallway, she started examining the field as if she had never been there before. She stepped slowly right into the place where he was standing that night when she turned his head into chicken stew using that force-wave.

"Don't get any ideas," he said flatly, eyeing her.

"Not even one tiny -?"

"No," he said firmly.

"Ugh, fine. So, how do we proceed with this baptism?"

"Go into the main bedroom and I'll show you."

"Pardon?"

"Wait … in the main room. Just, trust me on this," he rolled his eyes, feeling awkward at his choice of words.

She climbed the stairs to where his soul probably shattered, as his former master wasn't in there that night. She remembered how he looked so bewildered and controlled, politely excusing himself for some air. What other way to move his pain from the nest of the tiger, than to bark at yours truly? She knew it was a perfect means for him to discharge of all the hatred that he had to swallow for so long. A bit of certainty, she thought, a bit of security, in all the glory of the uncertainty that surrounded him. She didn't plan it, though, her reactions that night were mostly impulsive and genuine, but she set off a kite with no visible chance of return. Seeing as how time had left its print on their freakshow relationship, she didn't mind the endless confrontations anymore. Not that there had been any, that came from  _him,_ as of late, anyway. Any other day she would have thought he was inviting her just to plunge his fist into her chest, but tonight, she trusted he had some other agenda.

Fenris shortly came into the room carrying a few bottles of wine and placed them on the table.  _Wait, ho, are you trying to get me drunk? No, no, no, I'm not ending tied up in your basement._ He opened one up and looked at it as if it killed his mother.

"Aggregio Pavali. There are six bottles in the cellar," he said plainly.  _So, is that some subtle way of saying you_ are  _trying to get me drunk on expensive wine?_  "Danarius used to make me pour it for his guests. My presence intimidated them, he said, which he enjoyed," he said bitterly, turning to her.

_The tiger's out of his mountain... in his own mountain. We can finally see eye to eye, seriously._

"Nothing like a bit of fear with your wine, I'm sure. But I can't see how they would be so frightened, your former master obviously tried too hard to make you look intimidating," she said firmly.

"Well, none of his guests were like you. You already figured me out, haven't you, Hawke?" he said nonchalantly.

"You know I only look like I'd have figured you out. There's more than meets the eye," she said, pertaining to his appearance.

" _To cross the sea without the sky seeing you,"_ he said flatly, watching her.

"I have never said that out loud, how did you - ?"

"You're not the only one with surprises," he said, remembering how he stunned him when she muttered words in old Tevinter.

"So you did figure it out, did you? That's why you invited me here, isn't it?"

" _I_ said no such thing," he said grinning, leaning against the table.

"Then what? To indulge me into your painful past? I don't think you're that eager to talk about it."

"I'm not," he said sharply and took a few sips from the wine bottle. He looked at it again as if it killed his mother and in a faint second he viciously tossed it into the wall. "It's good I can still take pleasure in the small things."

"You could have offered me a glass, first, you know."

"There's more, if you're really interested," he shrugged.

"Maker, forbid. How else will you baptise the walls?"

She froze in terrior as she watched him genuinely let out a laugh, looking as if ashes were trembling out of a statue that moved after a thousand years and almost cracked.

"That  _was_ my original idea, indeed," Fenris said smiling. He let off a low soft  _Mmm_  while looking down to his right and then locked his gaze onto her again. "I've wanted to leave my past behind me, but it won't stay there," he said bitterly, taking a seat in front of her. "Tell me, have you never wanted to return to Ferelden?"

"More times than I care to admit," she said, forming circle onto the floor with her boot. "Ferelden will always be my home."

"The Blight is over – you can rebuild what you've lost. Do you truly not want to?" he asked, frowning. Hawke looked at him in silence, as she understood he was seeking for an answer to his own plight.

"I can't go home," she said bitterly while looking down.

"I'm sorry," he said politely and bewildered, deciding not to prod her from the start.

"Thank you," she said while turning her gaze up to him and smiling. "Even if I could, Kirkwall is my … home, now", she continued, rolling her eyes at the last part.

"Having a place where you could put down roots. I understand."

"Of course you understand, you grow roots wherever you sit," she laughed.

Fenris grinned and leaned his hand on the bench. "Yes, I seem to be an expert at it."

"You're thinking what it would be like if you could have the option to return home, aren't you?"

"To have that option... would be gratifying," he said bitterly, looking away.

"You need to make the most of where you are, as much as it pains you to do it," she said ammiccably.

"Like I do here? Spending my nights in insomnia and my days barking at you?" he laughed, yet again.

"It's a good start, Fenris. A year from now you might even start wearing noble shirts and coats and embroidered pantaloons and I'll be wearing a finally excellent piece of plated mail or something. I'm thinking of having a dragon engraved into it," she started rambling.

"An excellent choice, but I won't be getting out of this armour anytime soon."

"Not even to take a bath?" she asked sarcastically.

"Not even if the Divine command me to," he continued her sarcasm while laughing softly.

"Hm. Well, we know who'll be dancing in victory when I get you out of that armour."

"By all means, try. You will be utterly disappointed," he said firmly.

"Be careful what statements you make," she said, reminding him of the last one he said he would deny having made.

"Or what?"

"I'm just saying. Someone's going to be dancing in joy when either of these bets are lost."

"There are two of them now?"

"Well, as you may recall, the first one was -"

"To take you to my bed, yes, I remember," he grinned and raised an eyebrow.

"And then there's the getting you out of that armour. Boy, are we kinky," she laughed.

"Fair enough. I will hold you to that bet," he smiled and reached for a dignified gauntlet handshake.

"I should thank you again for helping me against the hunters," he said shyly.

"You don't have to, but, you should," she said in a cocky tone.

"Had I known Anso would find me a woman so capable, I might have asked him to look sooner."

She started laughing, "Boy, sounds like you're about to ask for a loan."

"Well, you said this mansion does require some upkeep, if I recall correctly."

"Guilty," she said laughing.

He paused as the words were barking to come out and he suddenly felt at ease and granted them permission to exit his stubborn mouth, "Perhaps I'll practice my flattery for your next visit? With any luck I'll becoming better at it," he said letting out a broad smile, at long last.

"Oh, there's going to be a next visit," she gestured eagerly.

"If it even comes to that, who knows," he said, assuming a bitter tone again and looking away.

"But, you could track Danarius down, I assume. You don't have to wait here for ghosts."

"I imagine he has returned to Minrathous. If so, I would not dare go the city while he is alive," he said strategically, "No, it's best if I remain here. Fight from a fortified position."

"And if he doesn't come?"

"If I ever get an advantage over him, then I'll go to him. I will not live with a wolf at my back," he said firmly and frowned.

"The best advantage lies in numbers. And you haven't had that privilege until now, I assume."

"I did sometimes, just hirelings, when I could steal the coin. Never anyone of substance, however – until you," he said eyeing her.

"Sounds like you have it all planned out, then," she said smiling.

"If you do help me when that day comes. I would certainly not turn it away."

"You don't expect I would?"

"Do I need to remind you of what you told me ever so gracefully just a few hours ago?"

She laughed warmly, "I was just bullshitting,  _and you know it_ ," she said smiling.

"I barely know what's going on inside that head of yours," he sighed, looking away.

"You don't need to know much. Helping people and killing people is what I'm best at," she said sarcastically.

"Though I would like it if I knew more, as a matter of curiosity."

"Just like that?"

"Pardon?"

"You think I'm going to tell you and -"

"Spoil all the fun? No, I wouldn't dare to imagine otherwise," he said sarcastically and grinned.

"Then we have an accord," she said smiling.

"At long last," he said, while standing up, feeling relieved she didn't ask him to make an accord where she would have to tell him about her demons and he would have to do the same. Little did he know, however, that neither of them were ready to face the tiger.

He grabbed two bottles of wine and opened them quickly with his clawed gauntlet. He gave one to Hawke and she stood up. She followed his chivalrous raising of the bottle and watched him, "To baptising my borrowed mansion," he recited courteously.

"And to redecorating the walls," she followed sarcastically, before he started laughing warmly again.


	7. Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter

"Maker's bloody testicles, what are they taking so long?!" Hawke shouted in anger, pacing forward and backwards. Her head was echoing with a high-pitch sound that drew her nearly to faint, as if someone mind-blasted her. She frowned and pressed her eyes closed, holding her temples and feeling the urge to pull her hair out of her skull. Her legs were moving mechanically, but lacked so much resistance she kept tripping and they felt like puppet sticks. Her forehead harbored a colossal tornado, one that destructively dizzied her out and threw forcewaves back and forth into her head. Lastly, her breathing was impatiently bidding for hyperventilation, as well as ceasing repeatedly like a stubborn mule tired out in its journey.

* * *

 

"Why is it that wherever trouble is, there you also are?! I didn't have three children just so I could have spares should one of them gets himself killed! Why do you always involve yourself into these things and squander situations you don't understand?"

"But, Father, I had no cho- "

"But nothing. You shouldn't even have been there in the first place. You defiled my -"

"I didn't want to be there, she -"

"ENOUGH. You were the older sibling, YOU should have known better."

"Father, please just listen -"

"I'm done listening. I'm done trying to make you see how dangerous you are, just how dangerous it is to walk out of this household. You've made your bed, and now you've lost it."

"So I should have just done nothing and let them kill us?!"

"Get out of my house."

"Father, ple-"

"Out."

"Fine."

* * *

 

"How could you let her charge off like that?! Your little sister, my little girl!"

"Not a word. I can't even look at you right now," Leandra said bitterly sitting in camp.

"Mother, I'm so-," Hawke tried to reason with her while being on watch. It was always her to kept watch; she wondered how she wasn't fainting from exhaustion.

"Sorry won't bring her back from the dead."

"Finding a scapegoat won't either."

"If I wanted to find a scapegoat, I would have blamed Sir Aveline for being the older one from all of you that should have known better, but I'm not," her mother pushed it with logic.

"Miss, please calm down," Aveline said softly.

"Alright, Sir, as you command," Leandra replied sarcastically.

"Your daughter would have not wanted you to fight like this, Miss."

"I... I can't -," Leandra said looking down.

"Of course she can't."

"So help me, girl!"

"Miss, please," Aveline said while placing a hand on Leandra's shoulder.

"Fine. But don't even think of speaking to me again for the time being. I'm done -," her mother said as she moved her shoulder away from Aveline's soft grip.

"You're done with me again, Mother? Shall I remind you how that turned out for everyone?"

"I haven't forgotten."

"Good. Blood's blood and all, but you can't keep spitting in my face, blame me for everything and expect me to suffer it."

"You're not my servant, you're my daughter."

"See how thin a line there is between the two?"

"I'd hardly call it thin!"

"You certainly sound as if you did," Hawke said bitterly as she looked down.

"I'm sorry, love, I - "

"Too late. The donkey has collapsed from all it's been made to carry."

"Please don't call yourself that."

"Too - late," Hawke said flatly and walked away to keep watch from a distance.

* * *

 

"Why do you always do that, eh?"

"Do what? Oh, be better than you?"

"Cut it, Sister, the cocky warrior act is getting as stale as Old Barlin's butt."

"Why should I cut it when it's true?"

"Watch it, Sister," Carver said aggressively as he stopped from their evening walks to the lake where they practiced swordplay with Ser Armand.

"What are you going to do, Carver? Kill your own sister?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but anything else feels like a fair deal," Carver said while he frowned.

"Then by all means, punch me right now. Look, I'm even dropping my sword down," she said as she put it on the ground and raised her arms horizontally in sign of 'Bring it on'

"Like I'd fall for that obvious trap. All you do is mock, taunt and make fun of people."

"Are there more than just the one of you in that head of yours? It would certainly explain why you gloat and brag about your muscle all day, but duck behind me whenever we're actually facing danger."

"I don't do that and you know it."

"Oh, I beg to differ, Little Ser Shortypants."

"One day that arrogant smug look is going to come back to bite you, I swear it on our ancestors."

"Is that a dwarven reference? Are you finally going to admit that you were adopted?"

"One of these days. I promise you that."

"Do not be fooled by a dog that restlessly barks - it never bites."

"Maker, I curse the day you were born."

"I most eagerly reciprocate, Boyshorts."

* * *

 

**Sometime way too late at night, Fenris's Mansion, _Morning of the Deep Roads Expedition_**

"I saw that smirk on your face just before, you were totally bluffing the shit out of that hand!" Hawke shouted at Fenris as they were playing Wicked Grace.

"I did no such a thing," he grinned through his teeth.

"You're such a snake," she said smiling and hitting him softly on the spiked shoulder pad. "I should beat it out of you."

She saw him flinch a bit at the sound of her poor choice of words and swallowed heavily. Even as a joke, she should have been careful not to start sounding like his former master. His quickly crumbling perspective could have easily confused her with a magister, if taunted enough. "I didn't mean it like -"

"I know you didn't," he simply said with a straight face.

"Phew, thank the Maker. But seriously, though, we should do it sometime."

"Do ... it?" he asked bewilderedly. "Beat each other up, I assume?"

"No, silly, the other thing."

"I'm not following. Oh..." he quickly paused. Were they not clear with their amicable handshake that the bet was pending and sworn to be carefully guarded? Or was she already trying to make him lose it. Of course she would. She wouldn't turn down any opportunity to beat the grass so the snake came out. Seeing the irony in that particular metaphor, for all his control and nonchalant appearance, his brain never seemed to like staying where it should be. No, it had to rush off in some other particular region and make him want to hit himself where he should never, ever get hit.

"I'd like to do it in a more civil way. You know, the way it should be. After all, you did say you wanted to see how being in company of a real lady would be like," she said grinning.

"I am yet to see that in the flesh," he quickly said, deflecting, ultimately having no other thing to say.

"Well aren't you coming off a bit strongly there? I wouldn't stand a chance if so, you said it yourself," she said laughing.

_I humbly beg you, brain, to urgently return to your proper place of functioning._

"I... did?" he asked plainly, raising an eyebrow.

"Well we can't all resist such pressures while barely wearing anything," she said grinning.

What was she doing? Her pertaining to his skin-showing armour was evident, but ... well, she  _was_  technically barely wearing anything, chainmail cut vest and black pants aside. He should have stood up, cursed and invoked his rights to throw her out of his mansion for breaking one of the endless rules on his list of reason to do so.

" _I_  certainly can," he said flatly, beginning to wonder if he spoke too soon, as he eyed Hawke's pale neck outline while she was watching him with her chin up in a proud way.

"That's exactly what I mean.  _I_  can't always do it, not with you at least," she said gesturing at him and grinning.

 _Vishante femina_. Stupid, ridiculous Hawke, always trying to have it her way. Stupid, ridiculous and gorgeous Hawke. With her stupid blood red hair and her ridiculous clown legs and her gorgeous... _Vishatta_.

"I haven't noticed that particular detail," he said flatly, trying to remain an unaffected statue.

"How could you? We have never done it. Well at least not with each other," she said, raising an eyebrow and putting on a charming grin.

"Oh? You sound like you have some experience to share," he said, not understanding what he said himself. He was just trying to throw meaningless words to make her talk instead of him.

"I'll gladly share it with you, you might learn a thing or two. You are the only one I consider worthy enough to share it with, to be honest, much to your surprise," she said smiling.

"Yes, much to my surprise," he repeated what she said nonchalantly.

"No that you don't seem like you would be a natural. But it would certainly make me feel better, not having to do all the master work," she said continuing to grin.

"Are you certain you want to step in this dangerous territory?" he asked, eyeing her through his grizzled hair.

"It's not dangerous if you know how to control yourself, Fenris. You might be stronger than me, being a man and all, but you won't kill me in the process. Not unless I taunt you hard enough anyway," she said smiling.

"Taunt me hard enough?" he asked flatly.

"I'm not that reckless. That would be the danger zone. But come on, we're teammates, this was begging to happen sooner or later," she said assertively and grinned.

"It was? Care to elaborate on that statement?" he threw questions again, trying to make her talk away, as the little man in his head tied with spiked wires to the chair was cursing in Tevinter and begging him to throw her out.

"What is there more to elaborate? I think I've made myself clear enough," she said, raising an eyebrow and smiling viciously at a faintly blushing Fenris who proceeded to swallow heavily.

"You hardly ever do, Hawke, as much as you create the illusion that it is indeed so," he said looking down and grinning.

"Bah, you wound me," she said sarcastically and put her hand on her chest. "And I find myself wanting to be wounded by you with each passing minute," she grinned.

"Why would you think that I would - uh..." he said softly and looked down."What are you even talking about, Hawke?" he sighed within.

"Dueling you, of course, what did you think I was talking about?" she said bewilderedly and raised an eyebrow.

"Nevermind."

* * *

 

**Sunrise, 6:24 A.M., Hightown Square**

"Well look who's an early cuckooshrike this morning!" Hawke said courteously to Fenris as they ran into each other in the cold fresh air of dawn.

"I didn't get much sleep."

 _I bet you didn't,_ she laughed inside.

He looked at her tiny backpack and she eyed his much bigger one. "Well, we certainly have different views on baggage."

"Each with how much they can carry," he said flatly, the both of them sensing the deeper meaning in his words. He thought her not being able to bear as much as he could, that she was your ordinary spoiled brat compared to his past.

"And each with how much they wish to hold on to," she stung back politely.

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric?" she said unaffected, turning behind to face her rogueish little friend.

"All ready and in complete and perfect state to fight?" he asked like a general bearing more subtlety than the apparent meaning of his question.

"Sir, yes, Sir," she said sarcastically, gesturing a military salute.

"Good. I don't need another whining baby in my team," he said bitterly, knowing Fenris would misleadingly think he meant Carver.

"Speaking of, where's my baby brother?" she asked smiling.

"Still packing his bags. He really had rough night," Varric laughed in victory.

"I see you have finally found a clever way to win your coin back," Fenris joined in a nonchalant manner.

"Rightfully served, messere," Varric replied charmingly, holding onto his jacket.

"Don't count on it," Fenris retaliated flatly.

"Is that a threat? I think I must have worn the wrong kind of tight pants today, 'cause other than that, I surely don't seem to look like a pretty little homicidal redhead, elf," Varric said sarcastically. "Or maybe I shouldn't cheer so soon, we'll be stuck for a month in just as tight a shithole with you two so close and eager to kill each other before we reach the surface," he said putting his hand on his forehead and realising just how poorly he had thought his plan now.

"I bet 30 silvers that they jump at each other's throats before we even reach the Deep Roads," Carver's voice emerged from a distance.

"And I bet Junior 60 that you'd start the ritual bitching right in the Merchant's Guild," Varric laughed charmingly.

"You really have nothing better to do than toss coin at and from one another to no end?" Fenris asked them, annoyed.

"Nope," Varric said sweetly and grinned, "Well, there is something else, but we're not disclosing anything for the moment."

"You're keeping secrets from me?" Hawke childishly asked Varric seeming genuinely wounded.

"Oh, cheer up, Pantaloons, it's not that big a'deal," Varric said brotherly.

"You owe me the first piece of jewellery you find in that blighted pithole," she said assertively.

"My, I never pictured you for a jewellery kind of girl, Hawke," Varric eagerly indulged his curiosity.

"Oh, yugh, not for me," she said frowning and quickly looked at Fenris, "For Little Lady Whiteshine over there," they both said at the same time. Hawke looked at him bewildered and grinned. "Caught into a trap of my own doing – you're starting to learn," she said proudly to him.

"Yes, it certainly seems that way," he replied nonchalantly, trying not to smile in victory.

* * *

 

**7 A.M. sharp, Dwarven Merchant's Guild**

"The Deep Roads will be nice and virginal, ready for a good deflowering," Bartrand shouted like a general to the troops.

"Well, that's an interesting image," Varric muttered sarcastically.

"It's going to take a week for us to reach the thaig, and it's a lot of risk we're taking here, but the rewards will be just the sweeter," Bartrand continued preaching assertively.

"Unless a dragon's sitting in it, then I'm out," Hawke whispered to Varric.

"Oh, quit your whining, Pantaloons, you severed a dragon's head just last week," Varric retaliated brotherly.

"I don't think the dragons in the Deep Roads are as malnourished as the one from last week, Varric."

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric?"

"No. Whining."

"Is that a breach of contract or something?"

"Why yes it is, signed and sealed under the No Whining Act of 8:34 Blessed," Varric said sarcastically.

"Well, how can I argue with that impending evidence," she retorted sarcastically. "Objection humbly withdrawn."

"Lawyered," Varric said charmingly.

"Hawke."

"Yes, V- Anders! What are you doing here?"

"As I was putting out milk for invisible cats this morning, it suddenly hit me how much a prick I was refusing to come with you," Anders admitted sadly.

 _There's no argument there,_ Fenris thought to himself.

"Maybe I should get you a real cat so you can finally master the arts of doing what's right," Hawke said sarcastically, obviously mocking Justice.

"Ahah, no, not a chance – I'm not living through that heartache again," he said half-bitterly. "After what became of Ser Pounce-A-Lot, even Ariel knew better than to bribe me with another secret cat just to stay with the Wardens."

"Who?"

"Commander of the Grey. I mean, the Hero of Ferelden," he said, rolling his eyes at the last name and how ridiculous it sounded.

"I totally forgot about that. You must tell me all the dirt on her," she said eagerly like a child jumping for a new toy.

"Wait, who invited the old woman?" Bartrand's voice was heard from afar.

"I'm sorry to disturb, Ser Dwarf, but I must speak with my children," Leandra said politely, her noble manners of old evidently not forgotten even with her following rural life background.

 _Oh, Maker damned crackleweed and greengiant and whatever else I put in her tea didn't work,_ Hawke thought, feeling the earth-shattering request of her mother coming to bite her.

"Love… You I understand wanting to do this, but please, hear me out and leave your brother with me," she pleaded honestly.

"Mother, you know I can't do this. It's his choice to make and frankly, I need him," she said, feeling guilty.

"It is my Maker damned choice and I choose that I'm going. End of story," Carver stepped in, masking his surprise at his sister's words.

"Please, Carver, if anything were to happen to you there," Leandra tried to plead logically and courteously, but still failing to hold the tears in. "She can protect herself in there, with her…," she paused from instinct. "And don't think she won't be watched over more carefully by the loads of men they bring," she said with a bit of disgust.

"Mother, this is my chance to put my sweat and blood into something honest… that will also help you to get that damned estate you itch over so much," he said looking down. "You have to understand."

"I understand, Carver, believe me, I do," she said, trying to control her frustration.

"Then let me do this… don't make this harder for me," he said, admitting that he could be influenced by her into a guilty conscience.

She couldn't control it any longer. She burst slowly into tears and nobly covered her face.

"I promise I will protect him, Mother," Hawke said determined. "No one is dying on my watch, not anymore," she said assertively, finally feeling the courage to say it and assume responsibility for her sister's death.

They both hugged her at the same time and kissed her forehead, then turned away to face Bartrand.

"Well, done with the sob fest, yet? Who are you bringing to guide your skirt?" Bartrand asked impertinently.

"My little brother, that glorious statue depicting an elf over there and the man in the funny dress over here," she said sarcastically, trying to subtly imply  _she_ was more likely to look after their skirts.

"Nuh-uh, 'partner', Rule of the Three," Bartrand said aggressively. "Pick your freak."

She frowned all the way to the Anderfels and looked at her companions who were watching her impatiently to give the final verdict. If she was determined about something then, it was that she had to take her brother with her. As much as he stubbornly whined about his being in her shadow, she knew what rash decisions he would turn to if she wouldn't grant him a seat at her right side. And it would have surely eased off their conflict … not to mention if any Templars came knocking on their door and started interrogating everyone (no doubt tipped off by a certain vengeful magistrate) her mother would have died before giving away anything, but she wasn't sure about Carver doing the same…Varric was going by contract and Fenris had become indispensible to her in a fight. No one understood her mere looks better than him when it came to on-the-spot made up strategies.

"I'm sorry, Anders, it seems you won't be coming after all," she said in a low tone.

"Hawke, I know the Deep Roads better than anyone here. I've spent months wandering in them with the Commander herself, you won't find a better chance to survive than me," Anders pleaded logically.

"I can't do this now, Anders – we've already carefully made our strategies for combat, we can't change it now," Hawke retaliated, feeling caught between opposing logical arguments.

"Hawke, I know I was a jerk to refuse before, I didn't want to return to those blighted thaigs again, but trust me when I say you need me there," Anders said determined, approaching her assertively.

"I'm sensing I was too rash to think you'd actually take me," Carver said bitterly to Hawke, knowing if Anders came, he would be the first one out, since that pointy-eared menace seemed more like an old husband than a hired sword to her.

"No, Carver, I'm taking you no matter what," she said, amazed at herself for having stated it with such determination even. No less was her brother, as well.

"He  _is_ a Grey Warden and he did spend a great deal of time in the Deep Roads. He's the only one in our line who would sense darkspawn and that does consist a very strong advantage to our safety," Fenris surprisingly stepped in, to himself, as well, no doubt. "Knowing your enemy is good, but keeping the enemy of your enemy in your pocket is all the more clever," he concluded, pertaining to the darkspawn sensing part.

"Wow," Anders said in amazement. "Come on, Hawke, even this d- ,  _our friend_  here says I should come, you can't deny such a reliable … and unexpected source," Anders said, carefully trying to stay polite for the sake of being picked.

Fenris was right and for all his hate for Anders, he still took side of logic, instead of personal prejudice. Maker, this was worse than deciding between both equally unfitting bra sizes. She felt her head exploding and massaged her right temple in hope of a miracle. Then it hit her.

"You sneaky little weasel, you," Hawke turned to Bartrand.

"You giant red piece of man legs, you," Bartrand retaliated nonchalantly.

"The Rule of the Three, that you claim, doesn't apply to Varric. He was already a partner and we cancel each other out. You were just trying to carefully blind me to this little detail because you know we're already so in love with each other," she said sarcastically.

"Yeah, Bartrand, quit your bullshit," Varric said awkwardly, pretending not just to realize when Hawke said it, that he let himself be played by his big brother.

"I'm happy to withdraw my generous share right now, if you prefer a more naive pushover kind of partner, perchance you could even find one on such short notice," she said assertively.

Bartrand drew a collosal disgusted frown and gestured with his hands in the air, "Fine, sod it all, take your manskirt, take whoever, I don't even give a flying sod," he deflected aggressively from admitting having been rightfully outwitted.

"Welcome aboard, Anders, try not to get eaten and we'll be fine," Hawke said turning to Anders and smiling.

"I'll try my best. More so I'll try not to let  _you_ get eaten by any maiden-stealing dragon. Maybe I'll make the news soon – "A Handsome Rebel Apostate Saves The Beautiful Queen of the Underworld from Vicious High Dragon," he laughed.

"Brilliant," Fenris muttered sarcastically.

"Well, the way you said it, I could be any of those two," she laughed mischievously at Anders as she quickly outsmarted him. Fenris could not for the love of all apples, control his genuine laughing out loud in front of everyone, that ultimately scared the shit out of them.

* * *

 

**Sunset, Sundermount Base Crusts, Vimmark Mountains**

"Please, Blondie, for the love of my pretty little fairy pants, stop collecting every single damn weed you walk on," Varric pleaded to Anders while cracking up a plan. "The larger your package gets, the more likely you'll get the boot, my fr-"

Varric's plea got interrupted by an extremely humoured Hawke who started laughing like a giant clown. "The larger his package, the more likely he gets the booteeeh," she said in-between panting her lungs out. "Get it?" she asked childishly.

All the surrounding men, including strangers, starting laughing at her pervy joke and Varric sadly admitted to himself she did quite the wordplay and laughed. Luckily for Fenris, his soft laugh remained untraced through the much louder human ones. Unluckily for him, Hawke watched him like a leopard eyeing the naive gazelle from behind and she took the chance to unsettle him.

"I'm looking at a booty of an elf so cute and broody," she recited gracefully meaning to annoy him.

"You'll undoubtedly be an inspiration to all aspiring future poets, Hawke," Anders butted in sarcastically, ruining her chance to make Fenris talk for a chance.

"I rather liked it," Fenris said out of nowhere in a flat tone.

"Oh, quit your act, you're just saying that so you won't hurt the lady's feelings," Anders said sarcastically.

"I imagine it must be hard for a man in skirts to simply admit to a well-thought jest from a woman in pants," Fenris retaliated mockingly.

"Got any aspiring clients lately? I heard you found an alternative purpose in life other than to bitch at mages," Anders retorted, having heard Hawke's insulting Fenris as being eligible for recruitment at the Blooming Rose.

"Should I save you the embarrassment of getting picked over you?" Fenris shoved it in Anders' face, starting to embellish. They all, but Hawke, misunderstood.

"Since when was it official that you're Hawke's choice of -"

"Whoah, whoah, who's my choice for what?" Hawke overheard and stepped in.

"The mage mistakenly thought I meant that you had chosen me over him, whatever that implies."

"Hah, he meant at the brothel, Anders. Or should I remind you of your constant whining of being asked to sign up for the profession. Almost whenever we seem to have surprisingly unexpected business there."

"Well if they chose him over me, it surely sheds more light on how truly cheap he is," Anders saved it gracefully.

"I am merely providing a free and humble service, just as you are," Fenris said sarcastically, using his own argument against him - knowing the mage would be offended by him comparing his healing work to prostitution.  _Oh that was nasty_ , Hawke thought,  _Low blow right under the belt_ , Varric joined the invisible telepathic exchange of thoughts.

"Manskirts viciously bloats with every stinging word that Broody squirts / No doubt those words may be his last, as the mage prepares a spell on the elf to cast," she recited sarcastically, telling the story of yet another one of those episodes in which Fenris and Anders would fight with each other without including Hawke in it, anymore. She knew Fenris would divert his mage-hating attention to Anders and regard her as worthy compared to him. And Anders learned his lesson not to appeal to Hawke to join in his battles without getting bitten himself. Hawke was really not the right kind of publicity for mages' rights to freedom.

"I have a rather excellent follow-up to your story, Hawke," Fenris said grinning and slowed his pace to let her catch up with him.

"Wooh, is it in verse? Please let it also be in verse," Hawke said childishly.

"Evidently," he said drawing a ghost of a smile. He cleared his throat chivalrously and started, "As the night sky proceeds to exalt above the restless ground/ I find myself taken aback by a most disturbing sound" he recited knightly and sarcastically, everyone listening to him in silence. "'Tis no doubt a whining mage's cry in pretence most profound/ But  _wait_ , I would have taken my astonishment foolishly wrong" he continued intoning dramatically. "For the louder he moaned, alas, above the deep blue sea / Of kittens and mages and other idiocies," he said nonchalantly and grinned, "The less I did hear and the more I started to see / Just how much I would kill for him to shut up and be," he finished grinning.

"Bravo, Fenris, my sincere congrats for -"

"Or simply not point he would get stuck into a tree," he said without turning his head to him, as he stuck himself in a grand oak's lower branch.

"Holy Mother of Green Cheeses, that's the most we've got out of him in two months," Varric said astonished and laughing like a giant bear.

"I think he outdid us both in the Original Snark branch and won the Championship Cup," Hawke said laughing, being most taken aback and amused by Fenris's sudden cascade of sarcastic, but the most important part, mere words.

"You, elf, are one kinda cool son-of-a-bitch, you know that?" Varric laughed behind him.

"You've managed to make one mage shut up, at least," Hawke said, making fun of herself. "Maker's ass, I can't breathe," she said while panting.

"Hawke?"

"Yes … Varric?" she laughed.

"Nothing," he quickly said grinning as she suddenly gasped and fell with her nose right into a small pond of something brown.

"Please tell me it's mud," Hawke muttered, sickened, as her head rose from the ground.

"That's for the spindleweed that reeked of old cow," Varric said grinning, playing with another small trap and rolling it around his index finger.

"Again, please tell me this didn't actually come from a cow," Hawke said while still fallen.

"Neither did the weed, I played by the rules. Say  _Thank you, Varric' for being fair_ ," he said sarcastically.

"Thank you, Varric, for being fair," she muttered sarcastically, being deeply annoyed.

" '… And for being handsome and smart and so very charming'"

"… And for – oh you know what?" she said annoyed and got back up on her feet, standing a'tall, full of mud, in all her glory. She brushed off a bit of smut from her elbow and looked at him unaffected, "Deep in the night, 3 A.M., people were tiresomely moping around the infected inn drowning in their own spit. Varric has a bit too much to drink and decides to go to the bathroom – "

"Okay, okay, Chuckles, I take it back," Varric said, annoyed. "No need to make up crazy stories."

"Crazy is the least of what that story is," she said assertively.

"Oh, come on, Sister, tell the story. It'd be a nice change for the dwarf to be the butt of everyone's jokes," Carver said eagerly.

"Nah, the gentleman is right. I'll hold this as a special serpent up my sleeve."

"You mean up your butt," Varric muttered lowly.

"Varric?"

"Yes, Hawke?" he pretended sarcastically.

"Don't push it or it may come out one day flying with sprinkles," she said assertively, while not realising just how misleading that sounded with her covered up in brown stuff.

"Wait what?" Varric asked and started laughing hard, followed by Anders.

"Eww," Carver said looking at his sister.

"No, not like that. Ugh, nevermind," she rolled her eyes, as she heard Fenris laugh ever so quietly next to her. She went to mark her territory in camp and scrape off the mud… that she really really hoped was mud. Yes, it was mud. Good.

* * *

 

**A few hours later in camp**

Hawke was pacing backwards and forwards trying not to watch her brother drink and laugh with the crew. Who knew, she would take her eyes for a second and he'd be getting in duels and getting his ass kicked or worse. She stubbornly held her sword prepared from a distance and continued walking in circles, trying to picture Varric and Fenris as the famous Broma Brothers that Varric told her about was the talk of Denerim's high nobility since a particular elf and dwarf used that stunt to infiltrate Fort Drakon when the Warden was captured. Varric's bullshit, while true or not, was useful in a way – her imagination floated in places so ridiculous and perverted that she easily got herself distracted from boiling up.

"Hawke," Fenris's voice came flatly from behind, announcing himself as always.

"Wha-?" she asked quickly, turning to him. For a second, she could swear he was wearing a circus jester hat. He had a sack made from goatskin filled with water that he was holding nonchalantly in the air towards her.

"You have gone purple," he said flatly.

"No, I -, tha-", she began to say but got interrupted by Anders who came from nowhere.

"Hawke, can we discuss strategies now? I can stay awake and keep watch with you in the mean time," he said eagerly.

"Please, don't make me hit you," Hawke said pleading as her tension started leaking and Fenris tried not to smile.

"What?" Anders asked in surprise.

"She means that she has already appointed everyone's guarding hours carefully, as well organized the strategies, and since you so eagerly joined in at the last minute," Fenris said as he frowned.

"Well that's what I'm trying to repair here, by discussing it," Anders said calmly looking at Hawke.

"Not so fast, Anders. Let's start by discussing how you make up for your prick moves," she said grinning.

"Well, sure, what do you want me to do? Wash your coat? Make soup? Warm your bed?" Anders said half-sarcastically and grinned at the last part.

 _Please, can I just hit him?_ Fenris thought to himself.

"You can start by telling me all about the Warden Commander," she said assertively.

"You know I can't discuss Grey Warden business, Hawke," he said frowning.

"But that's not Grey Warden business, Anders. It's simply insight in my favourite Ferelden's character. Oh come on, they were in Lothering just when we were waiting for Carver and I didn't see jackshit, never met her," she said sadly.

"Oh, fine, but nothing related to  _my_  time with her," Anders said sighing.

"Wooh, I'm sensing something kinky," Hawke said childishly.

"My respect for the Hero of Ferelden will not see the light of day if there is indeed something 'kinky' related to you and her," Fenris said calmly, taking a seat by the fire with them.

"Oh, no, she wouldn't even look at me," Anders said quickly without realizing how it sounded and saw Fenris laugh softly. "No, not like that," he sighed, "She is married."

"So the rumours saying she's been shacking with King Alistair are all crap," Hawke said in relief. "Unless," she said raising an eyebrow.

"You think a Commander has time in-between organizing expeditions, keeping the outposts together, assigning missions, being the equivalent of an arlessa , fight darkspawn, go in and out of the Deep Roads all the time, as well as have time for a husband  _and_ a lover?"

"Maybe not, but that doesn't matter. Keep talking! Time is wasting, dawn is coming upon us," Hawke said childishly.

"Well what do you want to know?"

"Who is she married to?" she asked eagerly, trying to abstain from asking the real question that's been bugging her for some time.

"Well you won't believe this story," Anders laughed, trying to intrigue her.

"Come on already, tell it," Hawke bit his bait and waited eagerly.

"Well, in short, she married the guy who was sent to assassinate her."

"Oh, really nice. Shacking up with the enemy and turning him into an ally. That's a master's tact right there," Hawke said grinning.

"She beat him up real nicely and he offered his services to her in exchange for his life."

"What services exactly?" Hawke laughed.

"Oh well, you know, what elves usually do," Anders said sarcastically looking at Fenris who frowned incessantly. "Shine armour, cook dinner, warm the tent."

"Then you fit right in there," Fenris told him grinning, recalling Anders' offer.

"Well someone's got to take care of Hawke while she takes care of everyone else," Anders retaliated looking at him.

 _I am keeping watch, you idiot. Nobody is 'taking care' of me,_ Fenris thought to himself as he frowned.

"Keep the flattery to a minimum, Anders, you're not getting out of your debt," Hawke said assertively. "Now go on!"

"Alright, well, he was quite the shady character, very handsome, talkative and charming. Kind of like Fenris, only  _exactly_ the opposite," Anders said sarcastically.

"She asked you to shed light on the Warden's persona, not her husband or your questionable preferences," Fenris said flatly.

"He's right. Tell me about  _her_ already," Hawke said childishly.

"She is a lot like you. Well, if you overlook the pointy ears," Anders began smiling.

"Oh? How come?"

"Red hair, beautiful, proud-looking," he began enumerating.

"Just that? I thought we were alike in character," Hawke said sighing.

"I was just getting to that. She was very determined, a really clever mind that kept resisting under so much barking pressure. A true general and warrior, in battles and daily affairs. Whenever I'm fighting, I always hear her voice shouting at me  _'Don't just stand there and look pretty, go for the archers, go for the archers!'_ " he said gesturing.

"Sound advice," Fenris said flatly and sarcastically.

"Luckily for you, you have found yourself quite the replacement to be shouting directions at you," Hawke laughed.

"Yeah, indeed," Anders laughed, "You know she was on the run, too," he continued. Hawke swallowed heavily, hoping for the response to a long-asked question in her mind.

"From what exactly?"

"Oh, from many things. She got into trouble  _all_ the time, much like you. She had to run and hide every time she got into fights with asshole humans that tried to enslave elves or rape them. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for the Wardens, the last head she severed that tried that stunt was the Arl's son," Anders laughed remembering and Hawke sighed within, not getting the answer she was hoping for. "I hated being in the Wardens, but she kept me going. It didn't have to be serious all the time. Whenever we returned to the Keep she'd laugh and make fun of me and we'd sign up for endless 'Who says the snarkier comment' matches."

"I'm sure she had many reasons to laugh at you," Fenris said and grinned.

"Normally, I would argue that and start barking at you. But I'm feeling nostalgic. I wasn't always this serious, believe it or not. Everything used to be a joke to me back then, well, at least before we really got into …business," Anders confessed while looking down.

"I can't imagine what it must be like to be a Grey Warden. Being plagued by nightmares and hearing darkspawn all the time," Hawke said while sighing, "But let's put it this way – in the Deep Roads you don't only hear Justice's thoughts, you also here the darkspawn. It's like having a raging party in your head," she smiled warmly.

"It isn't an invitation for tea and cakes, that's for sure. I always got the shivers when entering the Deep Roads. I'm worried what might happen to me this time," Anders said frowning.

"You'd better keep it under control," Fenris said calmly.

"Yes, I will. Only if you promise not to  _accidently_  magic-fist any of us," Anders said frowning.

Hawke sighed, "Why am I sensing magic-somethings are coming from both of you now."

"Don't worry, Hawke. I'm not going to waste my energy on this dog," Anders said in disgust.

"Now see. This is why you're going at it all wrong. You don't call him 'dog' and expect him not to bark," she said smiling. "And you don't call him 'abomination' and expect him not to well, contradict himself as both of the voices in his head try to get out," she said sarcastically.

"If I call him 'puppy' will he just squeal in terror and get out of my face?" Anders asked sarcastically, ignoring Hawke's advice.

"If I call you 'Man-dress' would you start dancing around floating your skirts and ask us to stick pennies in your crotch?" Fenris retaliated sarcastically. "Alas, we cannot always get what we want."

"Who's the one with the questionable preference now?" Anders retorted and smiled.

"Forgive me. I shall endeavour to construct my sarcasm in a much clearer way," Fenris said calmly.

"I pity the woman who would lay eyes on you," Anders said smirking.

"I pity her as well, seeing as how I don't have time for such nonsense," Fenris said flatly, not noticing Hawke swallowing heavily. He tried to make a sarcastic remark on Anders looking like a woman in those robes, but his choice of words blurred out the meaning entirely.

"We agree on something, at least," Anders said plainly.

"I don't think we do," Fenris said calmly. "But enough, I'm sure you need quite a lot of time we don't have for your head to think up new strategies."

"I'll pick his brains carefully, they're already quite a mess," Hawke said smiling. "Don't worry Justice, you're fighting for my freedom. Just calm down and let me talk to the man," she said sarcastically.

"Don't think Justice has no sense of humour. Half my jokes come from him, no doubt," Anders said laughing.

"And here I thought you were the only one making poor jokes," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Oh, go pester somebody else," Anders said angrily.

"Nobody volunteered so eagerly as you did," Fenris retorted calmly.

"So… strategies," Hawke said awkwardly, butting in their cockfight. "I should crack one up on how to keep you two apart. It really sheds a bad light on my leadership skills," Hawke said and sighed.

"Just keep your distance and we are fine," Fenris said to Anders nonchalantly.

"Oh, but how can I? Screaming your undying love with so much passion at me is really getting my 'man-dress' confused," Anders said sarcastically, trying to unsettle him.

"Enough, both of you. This is getting weird, and not the good kind," Hawke said assertively. "Bring the maps and let's see what we've overlooked."

As Anders went to Bartrand's tent to get the maps, Fenris kept looking at Hawke in silence. Whenever the fire was dying she would look at him childishly as if to ask permission to use magic to keep it alive. For all her flaws, she was not a hypocrite.

"Go on," Fenris gestured towards the fire. "Do it."

"Wanna see something cool?" she asked grinning.

"My former master's brains on the floor as I crack his skull," Fenris said bitterly.

"Well, that's a little too complicated," Hawke said and smiled. "How about this?"

He swallowed heavily as she scooted over closer to him, locking her eyes onto his face. They started a curious staring match as the fire kept dying. As the fire perished and they were suddenly enveloped by utter darkness, she closed her eyes and he remained stunned, feeling a boiling rush in his, well, everywhere, his brain going loose again in other regions.

"Boom," she shouted suddenly with her hand towards the wood as a roaring fire appeared. The flames formed a dragon that spilled fire from its jaws onto the pit and quickly vanished into the fire. "Ah, sod it. I wanted to make it fly around and shoot fire at the sky, but oh well."

"Impressive," Fenris said flatly, after coughing awkwardly.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, Deep Roads, Day 1**

"Well, here goes nothing," Hawke said smiling warmly at Varric as they entered the cavern leading underground.

"I shit you not, Hawke, if we don't find anything in there and we get eaten by an ogre, I'm tossing Bartrand to it first," Varric said charmingly.

"I thought you wanted a dragon to be the star in this story," Hawke said smiling.

"I tend to bullshit when I'm comfortable. I'm not comfortable," Varric said sarcastically.

"Don't worry, Varric, I won't let any big bad dragons come get you," Hawke said mockingly, "Just the small ones," she finished and grinned.

"There won't be any small dragons when I tell this story," Varric laughed as they entered a giant pint and the air thickened.

* * *

 

**No way to know where the sun is, Deep Roads, Day 3**

"Hawke," Fenris said flatly as she was leaning over a big dirty rock.

"Yes, Homer," she said sarcastically, pertaining to him being like the ancient Tevinter poet.

"Don't call me that," Fenris said calmly, leaning on the rock next to her.

"Oh, come on," Hawke said sighing, but got interrupted.

"I'd prefer Pomponius Secundus," he said intoning dramatically, "It accentuates the tragedy of the situation," he said flatly turning his look to the abomination looking for plants in his pack.

"Well that is quite… pompous," she said sarcastically. "He was a tragic poet, then?"

"So I've been told," Fenris said calmly.

"What  _do_  you read then?" she asked curiously. "I don't see you as a comedy enthusiast."

"I don't have time for poetry," he lied calmly, diverting from the fact that he didn't know how.

"You know, when we were kids, my brother and I would fight all the time," Hawke said while looking at Carver who was eating the chicken their mother packed for them like a beast.

"And as you grew up, you found it within reason to take breaks for eating and sleeping, I take it," Fenris said sarcastically, turning his gaze to her nostalgic eyes.

Hawke laughed, but kept her warm and, for some reason, sad eyes onto her brother in the distance, "Oh, but it wasn't like that. Back then, anyhow. It was way before he started to see the family dynamics, that he was he only child who didn't have the 'power'… and way before I started to be a cocky bitch," she continued smiling.

"You could have been a loving diplomatic sister and he would have still been this way," Fenris said calmly while looking at him.

She turned her eyes to him and asked bewilderedly, "Bullshit. Why would he?"

"He is a man," Fenris said flatly.

"Glad we've cleared that out," she said raisin an eyebrow. "You can start making sense any time now."

"What I mean is - no matter if you mock him or you support him, he would still see you as a threat," Fenris said turning his head to her now.

"A threat? I'm his sister. Or are you starting your mages are dangerous rant again," she said frowning, starting to become aggressive.

"On the contrary. You being a mage means little to him. It plays a part, no doubt, since you said your sister was one too. He would indeed feel like the lone blade in a household of mages, but you did take that from him, too," Fenris clarified it quite tactfully.

"I threaten his manhood now?" she asked while being outraged. "Ridiculous."

"It is not ridiculous. A man judges himself to the extent of what he is capable of. If his abilities are overshadowed by anyone else, he will start questioning his own worth."

"So I'm a girl and I stole his thunder," she said mockingly. "I'm sorry I found it within reason to learn to defend myself instead of sitting around in a dress waiting for Prince Charming to come to my rescue."

"Yes, I am quite certain you refused to be that character in your childhood role playing, no doubt," Fenris said laughing softly.

"I used to be the White Knight, Ser Luna Rosebud, rescuing Bethany from my brother, the evil Ser Tobias Blackheart, " she laughed out loudly remembering.

"I sense the only real name there is Bethany," he said laughing shortly.

"My sister, yes," she kept laughing.

"Well, Luna Rosebud, I have only now realized you have never told me your actual name," he said frowning.

"You're right," she said widening her eyes and looking evil. "This will be fun."

"You won't tell me," Fenris said looking down. "Figures," he muttered and grinned through his hair. "I assume you wanted to tell a story, before I interrupted you," he diverted looking back up.

"Story? Oh – yes, so we were fighting all the time when we were kids. We didn't know the pommel of a dagger from the straight end, so we found all sorts of fantastic weapons to use against each other… the usual – mud, rocks, sticks and branches," she started warmly. "He was such a vile little kid, always trying to put me in my place and beat me up. Now that you've pointed out why he was doing it, I think I understand."

"Continue," he said, nodding chivalrously.

"Anyway, we used to play by the lake a lot. When Bethany was there, it was quite civil. Well, if by civil you understand hitting each other all the time and calling each other names. But when she was not around, the real fight began. Bethany was the one who mediated between us, kept us from killing each other. She would scold us repeatedly and we'd look down all embarrassed and she'd order us to hug each other. Ugh, while we were disgusted with each other and hugging, she'd count the seconds up to 10 and then she'd let us go."

He smirked shortly, imagining it. If he had siblings, he would have surely been the knight in shining armour rescuing the innocent sister. The Knight of Roses, he remembered the card. "He knew I he was much stronger than me and he took no break in showing me. Always beat me up and stuck his tongue out in victory," she laughed bitterly, "Probably the most terrifying experience as a child is when you first try to breathe underwater, you know, without your brother's foot on your head. He held me my head in the water and started counting - Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot, nine days old."

"I can already see this isn't going anywhere pleasant for him," Fenris said smirking.

"It didn't. I grabbed his foot and eventually got out. I screamed at him angrily  _'How could you that? You almost drowned me!'_. He said ' _It's called poetry'._ So I hit my elbow into his chin and put my foot over his head underwater and I said ' _The Odyssey, by Homer'_."

Varric was startled again by a most curious sound, Fenris laughing heavily. He approached the two and raised an eyebrow, "This is worse than I thought. Not only did Junior and I both lose the bet, you're chirruping and giggling now."

"I told a joke, he laughed. Nothing fancy," Hawke deflected gracefully.

"Really? Then why does he never laugh at my jokes?" Varric said crossing his arms together.

"Oh, he does, inside. Don't you?" she asked awkwardly looking at Fenris.

"Just watch. A sandwich walks into a bar … the bartender says  _'Sorry, we don't serve any food here'_ ," Varric said and started laughing at his own joke.

"Oh come on, that's too stale, of course he doesn't laugh at that. Watch this," she cleared her throat, "A priest, a mage and a Templar walk into a bar… the bartender says ' _Is this some kind of joke?'_ ". Fenris didn't get it at first, but then he did laugh shortly.

"Bah, I never learn," Varric said and went by Anders who was making stew. "So, a human, an elf and a dwarf walk into a bar –"

"The human says  _– you're lucky you're so short, that hurt like mad!_ " Anders finished his joke grinning.

"You could've just stopped me, Blondie," Varric said while frowning. He never learned.

"Why waste a perfectly good set-up," Anders said laughing.

* * *

 

**Deep Roads, Day 4**

"Oh, come on, Varric, stop squirming at every shadow. It's just darkspawn," Hawke said assertively.

" _Just_ darkspawn? Right, it's like you asking a man if you look fat in a dress. It's  _just_ a simple question," Varric said frowning.

"Do I look fat in this armour?" she asked sarcastically, showing off her dark improvised chainmail vest, spiky shoulder pads, black pants with sewed in chainmail plate and a red veil tightened to her waist.

He sized her up, "Do you really want me to answer that?" Varric asked friendly.

"It doesn't matter does it? Once we get home you'll make me sound fat either way," she said smiling.

"I need to make it sound realistic. And you humans all look alike," Varric said charmingly.

"Right. Hey, hear this: Two dwarves are in a field and one says – 'Look at that dead crow!', the other dwarf looks in the sky and says 'Where?'"

"Ha, ha, Chuckles," Varric said flatly as the others laughed at the dwarf jest.

"I try," she said warmly.

"You have a fondness for red things," Fenris said catching up with her.

"I do? Well, I haven't noticed," Hawke said sarcastically.

"I did not mean your hair. That was not your choice, unless, -"

"I don't have time to stick my head into a dead man's insides. I'm as natural as they can get," she smiled while pacing forward.

"If you say so," Fenris smirked, "I simply noticed the veil, the belt you sometimes wear and the red piece of material you tied to the pommel of your sword."

"I do like red. It's all deep and strong and feisty," she said sarcastically.

"Well, I fail to imagine who all those adjectives resemble," Fenris said sarcastically, grinning a bit.

"I was going more for a divorced lioness in heat or something, but sure, if you say so," she smiled.

"Speaking of divorced lionesses," he said sarcastically, "I'm wondering where you got this gigantic knife of yours anyway."

"I won it in a knife-juggling contest at Satinalia. The pie eating contest was all full, so," she said trying to make a pun.

"That sword is made from sponge iron, or basilisk's skin steel as your people call it. You did not win at a mundane contest."

"Should I give you two more guesses?"

"No."

"Then, alas, you'll never know," she said pretending to sigh.

They stopped suddenly as the way forward was blocked by a collapsed bridge. Bartrand was furious and started punching his own men for failing to foresee this, as if they were supposed to be oracles.

"Set camp!" he screamed in annoyance like a cocky jerk, with his fist up in the air.


	8. The Lungs Of Hell: Poison Was The Cure

**Deep Roads, Day 4**

It was quiet beyond the broad darkness of the crevasse. Dead-quiet. Lothering sank very fast into dimness, either in the pastoral paths or amid more forlorn brick mansions hidden nearby the Imperial Highway. But never was it this dark, this empty and dead, like the place they were pacing through. It was utterly depressing to think these thaigs were once blooming with life, with women, children and fathers alike. Now they were crawling with mindless beings doing the evil and dirty work at the behest of the old gods that they themselves had forsaken, only to be sought restlessly and materialize once every few centuries.

For a long time Hawke used to linger, pondering on how the Maker masterfully shuffled ugliness and beauty with new violence, as each century passed and each century must.  _Ah, fields of thought and fields of despair_ , she thought.

She used to love walking along the flourishing earth, amid the clumps of high weeds and duck her head under the lowering giant branch of the great oak that rested for a thousand years at the entrance of the village, welcoming you. Lothering is always green. Not even the frost could destroy the camellias, the jasmine and the streets so overgrown. She would listen to the low pulse of the river and gaze at the distant rosy glow of the chantry and the drab cottages that followed its fences filled with magnolias and dark green ivy.

In her irreducible individual soul, she kept her guilt and her homesickness within, stricken and tragic, but all kept hidden away under a most delightful posture and funny carefree attitude. Like a flower to the sun, that's what she was to Ferelden, to the people in Lothering, to her family. They were almost all taken away, as if she deserved it, and she knew it - she did. It was hard to admit, but this newly appointed tragedy in the last year, was all but hazardous.

Walking amid this wreck, the Maker hurled her into hell, all in her dusty victory. The Deep Roads. And so it began. She would do all it took to make herself some fortune and get out of the metal spikes district filled with damp air and garbage and the sound of clear despair. Dusty victory, indeed. Of all the mages she knew, she thought herself the most nearly human, the most unidentified as anything more. And she remained so by choice.

Dwarves were clearly sharp and ... edgy. The grand entrances, the bridges, they all screamed symmetry and mathematics. Understand they were not as great an aesthetic creation as the Tevinter and Ferelden constructions. It wasn't an ugly sight, but it was too square in detriment to circular, trianglar and the sort. But they were entrances and bridges, nevertheless, and all such creations were beautiful and thought-provoking, inciting to take on a grand mystique.

The only bitch of life that lingered here, apart from the darkspawn, was the miracle of light. The fine smell of vegetal and the sound of wings.

How deep and dark, my river. She was mesmerized by the curious feeling of wanting to die. The air was still cool above them, but in spite of the dismal haze over all. She could see a wealth of cruel and tiny stars dancing statically around the lunar tempest... she just wanted to go there and be rid of this place. But alas, the dark of any river only flows forward into the light of dawn. This was a challenge of the world by dark, different than the world by light. All of them had to lie beyond that difference, as the difference was always going to continue, and be blurred ever so colossally.

A sharp sound presented itself, distinct, lovely, a really great distraction for the ones terribly haunted.

"Hawke," Fenris's voice came amiable and smooth as always.

"Yes?" she said suavely and looked at what he was holding. The sack of water again.

"I know it may come as shock to you, but you're terrible at keeping it together," he said serenely, like the dead calm sea.

"More so than you do, I assume you're getting at. Just say it. You think I'm a spoiled brat," she said self-assured and determined, grinning to no end.

He hesitated, then gave a small contained smile, "Whether it is true or not, I am merely trying to keep you alive," he said tranquilly and looked at her through her bewildered eyes, "Regardless."

"That's not answering my question. That's diverting yourself from answering, for whatever reason," she retaliated gracefully and give him the sack of water back after she had taken a sip, "Regardless."

"Is it even relevant?" he asked in a flat tone. He took the water and had a small sip himself.

"To the larger scheme of things, it is futile," she said looking in his green eyes. "Rather impractical even."

He blotted his lips fastidiously and look at her through his white hair, "Then come up with a better question."

"Alright. More fruitful question, hmm," she said tracing soft lines on the margins of her maxillary. "Do you see me as a hypocrite?" she asked self-confidently, taking a quick look at Anders.

He looked at her solemnly, almost drawing up a ghostly contained smirk, "No."

"That easy? Just no?" she asked childishly.

"I am not discrediting you ad hominem," Fenris said somberly.

"Ad hominem?"

"It is a fallacious reasoning by irrelevance. The arguments of a person are rejected on a basis of an unrelated or insignificant fact about them."

"I don't follow. Are you saying you're not disregarding my position just because I'm a vacant spot for plagues of the demons?"

"I am saying, you are operating within a role of your own choosing. You are fighting for your family and for your own freedom and your little 'curse', while it may not excuse it, does not have to play a decisive counterargument."

"But what about my own demons? And yourself? Fighting for your own freedom, while honorable enough, does not excuse the dangers that may come from the mess in your soul."

"Tu quoque," Fenris said bitterly. "As in, and you, too. Another fallacy, depicting hypocrisy. Rejecting an argument the other supports because of him being inconsistent within that position. You argued this with me so many times already," he said shaking his head and pulling the corner of his right lip in a distance.

"And what's your conclusion then, if it's a fallacy?"

"While the universal truth of the dangers your kind may pose is irrevocable... I cannot simply counter your freedom argument with that by pestering on your character, or the other way around. And just because I am not of your kind, that I can assume the right to badger you," he explained tranquilly, "In other words, extending the dangers to all the capabilities of living beings, I myself am a threat. From the mess in my soul, no doubt, as you said," he continued suavely. A bitter flinch in his throat gave away his tension.

"So, ... what? In the eyes of goodness, it doesn't matter? We are both good, until we betray that statement?"

"In a manner of speaking," Fenris said knightly, his eyes dancing downward to her gesturing hands, and other stuff.

"I see," she said plainly and noticed his wondering eyes. She frowned and said, "You little weasel."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You used that complex crap after I pestered you for an explanation. Your answer was a simple 'no', but that was bait."

He let off a controlled smirk, "And how exactly have I deceived you?"

"To swim in the sea without the sun seeing you. And to lie using the truth. You gave away a complex explanation instead of a simple one to unsettle my attention, when you also carefully said the truth, as in, the fact that those are fallacies. Attacking a person on the basis of them being inconsistent within a role they support does not invalidate their position."

"Right. Being good and controlled does not excuse you being a mage. Having a burned plague into my soul does not excuse me being dangerous as well," Fenris said serenely, throwing off a few strips of grizzled hair away from his forehead. "But it counts to the reversed way as well - being a mage does not ultimately invalidate you being honest and not being weak. Being vigilant and overargumentative does not excuse my personal hatred towards them."

"Now wait just a second, you -" Hawke said while striking a frown, but realized he had thrown her off completely. "I - Wow, I've got nothing."

"You heard her. My money, dwarf," Fenris suddenly said and held his hand assertively towards Varric.

"Hawke, what the hell?" Varric asked bewilderedly.

"You placed a bet on me?!" she asked in outrage, not being sure who she was mad at more. Varric for placing a bet on her betting partner, or Fenris for deceiving her so cruelly, making her bite the dust with her love of complex deep discussions.

"I really didn't think you'd be outsmarted by Broody," Varric said reaching for the coin in his jacket.

"You placed a bet on me?!" she repeated childishly.

"We argued that nobody can dethrone you from having an argument for anything. I told him I could make you speechless," Fenris said drawing a dark provocative grin.

"Oh fuck the eighteen generations of your ancestors, Varric and go fuck off in the forest and may the bears castrate your sodding manhood, Fenris," Hawke shouted aggressively and stormed off from camp.

"I told you not to do it, elf," Varric said charmingly. "This won't be pretty."

"I will be the judge of that," Fenris said smirking to no end.

"I promise you. She'll set off a battalion of angry wolves and sharp comments on you from now on."

"Let them come," Fenris said confidently, narrowing his eyes and he gave off a loose smile. If she could use stratagems on him, confuse him and tease his little brain to no end, he could too. He wasn't letting her confident prophecies - that she would eventually get under his skin and make him lose their private bet – take the lead as she did with everyone else. He wanted to dethrone her now more than ever.

**Deep Roads, Day 5**

After they found a way past the collapse and set off to find some treasure in the red lyrium enveloped caverns, Hawke kicked onto a small crack in the wall that led it to fall in front of them.  
"Might not want to do that again  _every_ time you think there's something hidden behind it," Varric said awkwardly.

"Shush, Varric, you know you can't win without me."

"Pardon, Madam. I am not seeking to win, with or without you."

"What's your game then? I mean really. What's your passion? It can't be money, you live in the Hanged Man for pit's sakes. What's the money for? What will you buy with it? Experiences you haven't had?"

"Why yes, Hawke, if you must know. I'm obviously a sensualist, for lack of a better word," Varric said charismatically as they walked vigilantly inside the long hallway.

Hawke raised an eyebrow and was prepared to say something, but Varric continued, "I'm a thief in every respect. But an honest thief nonetheless. It's my way of making something out of nothing, you might say, which makes me kind of like a god!"

Varric stopped as if he were so impressed with what he had just said that he had to catch his breath. Hawke narrowed her eyes and smirked, "Bullshit."

"You're getting pretty good at sensing it," Varric said charmingly.

"For what it's worth, I'll try to help you steal ownership of The Hanged Man when we're out of here."

"I'm endeared by your amiable gesture, but I don't need your help, Hawke. I've already got a plan for that," Varric said confidently, holding onto his jacket.

"Oh, good. I was almost about to take back my offer just after I said it."

"Bullshit."

"You're pretty good at sensing it, yourself," she said smirking.

Fenris was pondering on something much too heavily, because he tripped and wounded his foot on a small but sharp rock formation and started cursing in Tevinter with all new consonant-accentuated lines.

"Shit, elf, you scared the crap out of me," Varric said flipping in surprise.

Hawke decided not to mock him even though her whole individual spirit was on tenterhooks trying to let out jests about barefooted cockatoos. She contained her smirk and gave Anders a blank, dinstinct look and he nodded in response.

"I'll take care of it," Anders said firmly, approaching the elf.

"Keep your distance," Fenris muttered viciously through his teeth.

"Oh, come on, you want to limp your way through this hellhole?" Anders half-shouted in annoyance, both from his refusal and his obligation to heal him.

"Yes. I most certainly do," Fenris grumbled with a narrowed look and started walking past the mage.

Hawke took a step in front of his sombre path and blocked it decisively. "Fenris," she said bluntly.

"Clown woman," he returned the salute.

"Please, humour me and let him heal you."

"No," he said flatly and tried to walk past her.

She blocked his path yet again insistently and said, "Either put on a pair of boots or stop being so pseudo-independent."

"I shall endeavour to exist with less inconvenience," he muttered sarcastically and remained a statue in front of her, starting a staring match.

She kept her eyes on him dominantly and waited for him to do something, but Fenris just locked his eyes on her and stubbornly refused to act. She sighed and reached into her belt of many pockets and threw him a cold compress sustained by a faint amount of created ice and a small lanyard. "Then take this. Next time, I'm going to hit you."

"Femina," he said shaking his head.

"Magicka, femina, abracadabra, whatever. I'm just trying to keep you alive," she said narrowing her eyes. "Regardless."

After reaching a new and narrow hallway of red lyrium-threaded pitch-black walls, Hawke, Varric and Anders were walking in the front making fun of dwarven structures and listening to Varric's stories about Orzammar. Fenris took the chance to approach Carver.

"What is her name?" Fenris asked knightly.

"Nice try, elf," Carver said letting off a big grin. "She already got to me first."

"I thought you despised your sister's games."

"Oh, she's pretty bad. But we're in the Deep Roads and I can't complain about making it more interesting and less creepy."

"Why is it so important that I shouldn't know a simple name? Is it that hideous?"

"I'm sure somebody thought way too much on her name, but no."

"Then what is it? Is it Meredith?"

"I'm not telling you a thing," Carver swallowed heavily, then gave off a controlled laugh.

Fine. We'll see about that.

"So, you named your crossbow," Fenris approached Varric in a ghostly manner.

"Stop doing that, you're making me flip every time you appear from nowhere," Varric said while frowning and holding onto his jacket.

"Forgive me," he said politely. "So you named your crossbow," he repeated nonchalantly.

"Why yes, isn't she a beauty? Say hello, Bianca," Varric said charmingly, holding onto the crossbow.

"I assume you've named her after someone," Fenris continued solemnly, trying not to speak too loud for Hawke to hear as she was talking to Carver, probably to make fun of him.

"Nope. Mirabelle was taken," Varric said quickly and warmly.

"Preposterous," he replied assertively.

"That hard to wrap your head around, huh?" Varric said laughing like an old man.

"You fondle your weapon like it's a luxury whore waiting to feed you grapes," Fenris said calmly.

"Hey! Don't talk about Bianca like that, she can hear you!" Varric said frowning.

"My apologies. I have a tendency to accidentally insult weapons that have the ability to hear," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Keep that up, serah, and you'll be getting a lady's fist right into your smug face," Varric said assertively.

"So is this the story that you can never tell? You do know how to taunt people pointlessly with this intrigue."

"It's my favourite way of annoying people."

"But you did name her after someone," he repeated dominantly, trying to unsettle him.

Varric sighed, "Why do you keep pestering me with this?"

"Just wondering how names work," Fenris lied nonchalantly. "Hawke for example uses her family name, to confuse people about her gender, I believe."

"Nah, she likes how strong it sounds. Makes people know she comes from Ferelden and not some pissshit snoby country or, well, Kirkwall."

"Strange, though. You never call her anything else, and you're her friend."

"Well if I called her – "

Blasted. Hawke's voice screaming.

"You want a fight? Try me!"

"Gladly," Carver shouted. "I've been holding you for that duel after all!"

"Hold on to your knickers while you're at it. You seem tense," Hawke said narrowing he eyes in a dominant position.

"You always gotta have the last word, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Hmph. Talk and more talk. What else do you know better to do than that I wonder."

"Let's find out."

Hawke drew her sword out of its back-holder and positioned herself assertively. Carver frowned and her and did the same.

"Uh, Junior, Chuckles... Please don't start a fight right in the middle of the DEEP ROADS," Varric said awkwardly.

"I'm sick of her smug face. Why not now?" Carver asked aggressively.

"We agree at last," Hawke said grinning.

Carver went for her legs but she jumped and kicked him, disarming him. "Don't fidget on account of me. By all means, I'll pretend to look the other way until you grab your sword back."

He growled and they started hitting their swords into one another.

"Mage, cast a gliph of paralysis on them or something," Fenris shouted at Anders. But the mage seemed not to hear him, as he was holding his hands pressed onto his ears. He was hearing darkspawn again, which meant they could be near and those two idiots were fighting right in the open field.

"You always have to badger me, always have to put me in my place. Like you're the alpha dog and I'm the poor little puppy!" Carver shouted as he pressed his sword onto hers.

"Could you stop it with the second child act? I brought you here, I believed in you. Yet you still have to complain like a baby!" she shouted back pushing her sword onto his and making him back away with force.

"I'm sorry, I tend to forget how grateful I should be for having the mighty 'Hawke' there to bring me along under her skirt," Carver growled incessantly shoving an elbow into her chest.

She backed away into a defensive position and started laughing, "You give yourself too much credit. I'm not Mother to care so much where you voluntarily place yourself."

He roared in anger and charged into her. She ducked down and backed away, making him almost fall. He faked it. He knew her strategies by now. She left her guard down and he kicked her in the stomach. Hawke fell down and held onto her womb.

"Shit. See? You've grown up already," she said smiling. He walked like a beast starving for death towards her. "But not enough, so it seems," she said as she grabbed him by the foot and unbalanced him.

She quickly got up and grabbed her sword, deciding not to make him lose so fast. She walked to the other end of the room and put a hand on her hip, waiting for his next move.

"I wish you hadn't come," he grumbled bitterly, spitting on the ground.

"That's enough, Carver," she said assertively.

"So you say. But you don't spend one minute trying to understand where I'm coming from."

"You mean from right here? Finally decided to admit your heritage?"

"That's enough," Carver said aggressively and proceeded to scythe into her. She charged into him like a bull, both pushing each other with force, but not moving another step. "You're such a vile woman. Always thinking about yourself, always going for the prize, leaving everyone behind in your way."

"Face it. You always flinch every time you think somebody figured I was a mage. You don't want me gone."

"But you do, don't you?"

Did I leave you behind all this time?! Andraste's blighted tits, how much can you exaggerate?" she shouted as she pulled away from their sword pushing.

"Nobody knows you, Sister. Not like me. These fools think you you're some kind of goddess but I know better," he screamed in disgust and started going at her again. She intercepted all his moves and they kept walking in circles. She closed her eyes and pressed them as hard as she could.

"I'M DONE with you, Carver. You're so obsessed with this in my shadow thing. Why can't you sodding give me a break, for a change? Bethany was always your most precious little jewel, the best sister in the world. No matter if I support you, if I have to scream 'I LOVE YOU, BROTHER, I understand, go have it your way, you're the strongest most handsome warrior in the world', you'll still spit in my face, won't you?"

She sighed and started screming again, "Is it not enough that I'm blighted keeping quiet about every choice you make? That I'm taking you with me in every shithole if you so wish?" She looked down and squeezed the pommel of her sword as hard as she could. "Every sodding day, I'm the one whose head goes on a pike. Same as back home. You miss having Father there to scold and humiliate me, don't you? You miss him praising you for being such a brave lad while we fought for his blighted approval!" she screamed raising her hands in the air.

"Save your sobs, Sister. Admit it, you were always his damn favourite. No matter how much I tried, you were always going to be little beloved mage girl who wants to be the knight in shining armour!" Carver shouted gesturing in annoyance to mock her.

"And am I? Look me in the eye and tell me I've become what I set out to be," she said bitterly, in an assaultive, determined voice and locked her eyes onto him. "Now look yourself in the mirror and tell me I'm the one keeping you from being what you want to be."

"We're on the same page at one thing at least," Carver said bitterly, easing his sword down. "You'll never be what you set out to be. Ever," he accentuated the last bit with disgust. "No matter how much you try, you'll always be a blighted sack of filthy magic. For what it's worth, I'm rather grateful Bethany didn't live to become the same."

He struck the lowest blow he could find. That was uglier than any other line he ever gave her about their sister's death. Hawke eyed him quickly with a homicidal look, inhaled aggressively like a bull, dropped her sword and charged into him with bare fists. They fought like that for a good ten minutes, ducking and deflecting hits, until he finally punched her square in the jaw and she fell onto the ground with a tooth flying away with blood nearby. She coughed heavily and stubbornly refused to use a forcewave on him, no matter how much she felt the desire boiling up inside her.

She rose from the ground and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, "Say one more thing about Bethany and you lose your pretty head," she said monstrously and squeezed the collar of his shirt making him cough and grab her hands in hopes he could make them pull away. But she kept her grip strongly and pulled him closer to her face, their noses almost bumping into each other. "For what it's worth, you're dead to me."

She would have thrown him away forcefully and walk away, but the ground started to shake and everyone started to panic.

"Hawke, are you doing this?" Varric screamed reaching for his crossbow and backing away.

"No!" she shouted and looked around in terror.

A mighty roar vibrated into the walls, making some of the weak structures in the giant room collapse. She grabbed Carver by the bicep and ran, as a gargantuan high dragon charged in flight right into the spot they were standing. They both fell at the feet of their companions and the dragon gave another massive roar that shook the entire room and made everyone's blood freeze in terror.

They all assumed defensive positions, as Varric helped them up. Fenris drew his sword out and waited for Hawke to give out the starting alarm. He looked the other way to see Anders still mesmerized into the plague in his head. The elf inhaled ferociously and kicked his elbow into the mage's face, making him wake up and shout in terror at the sight of the giant dragon. He looked back at Hawke and she nodded at him with a small knightly and contained approval look and they charged their way around the beast. Dragonlings came out of nowhere to divert the crowd, which made it even worse, but Anders started icing every little one of them in a row.

"Anders, Varric, whatever you do, stay back!" she shouted aggressively like a general and then looked desperately at Fenris. He nodded chivalrously and started distracting the monster with his glow, ducking and jumping before it ever tried to strike him. Carver followed his sister and went for its legs. The beast roared in pain and changed its target to them. Hawke screamed at Carver to back away and the dragon tried to take her in its mouth.

Varric whistled loudly to the dragon and it turned its head to him. He threw an explosive in the beast's eyes and Hawke jumped on its long neck trying to slay it. The dragon roared and made the earth start to shake again, spilling fire all around it and throwing everyone tens of feet away with massive force. Fenris came out from under it, where he hid by turning his lyrium glow even brighter. Little did he take into account, that the more he focused on it, the more it agonized him and the dragon took a hold of him and bit his chest and back. He tried to sustain the lyrium haze so the teeth wouldn't go right into his insides, but that left him deeply immobilized.

Hawke plunged her sword into the dragon's spine. If she used any magic on it, it would charge into Fenris as well, so she couldn't take the risk. Before she tried to jump on its head and bluntly stick her sword into its eyes, the beast moved its long neck agitatedly with Fenris in its mouth and spit him forcefully into the nearest wall. She jumped off its neck being much too unbalanced and faced it full frontally.

The dragon must have been tired by now, but it had undoubtedly much higher energy reserves than any of them… all of them who were unconscious. Great. She thought the next time the beast would shoot fire she would form a cone of ice to block it, but it would have taken a shit ton of force and mana to make it strong enough not to simply be shattered by the mighty and massive quantity of the fire.

It charged its mouth towards her and she blocked it with her sword, which was now held stubbornly into its teeth. Hawke tried to think of some stratagem, but none were eagerly making their way into her head.  _Oh come on, birds, bees, tigers, snakes, something! Maker's sodding saggy testicles._ She held her grip on the sword determinedly and realized the pointy end of it was hurting and blocking the dragon's fire gland.

 _Asschabs,_ she heard the meaningless word in her head and recalled Merrill's misfires. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the entropic force she was now charging. She shot a purple cloud in the beast's mouth and it backed away, letting her get the sword out. The dragon was coughing the entropic smoke out and shoved its head from left to right in agitation.

 _Jackpot,_ she thought as she grinned inside. She ran to the beast and tried to cut its neck as it was holding it up, but she overlooked the fact that massive mana withdrawal and an almost empty reserve of strength and health all signed her funeral. The dragon raised its claw and held her on the ground under it, proceeding to push it hard and crush her.

In the blur of black and purple, for what little she could see, in a split second, a sword was plunged into the dragon's neck and it started spilling cascades of blood onto her. The claw rose from her body and punched Fenris away strongly and he hit his head onto the wall again.

She scooted away quickly as the dragon fell strongly to its death on the ground.

"Ugh, Andraste's knickerweaseals…" Anders muttered as he tried to rise from the ground. "Even my bruises have bruises."

Varric opened his eyes and coughed as he woke up laying somewhere by the stairs. "I knew I wasn't dead, there'd be more women around!"

Hawke tried to get up slowly, but barely could. Anders rushed with his magic plants pack to Carver and started healing him as he shouted for him. Varric was joining the healing tent, all limping and cursing his ancestors.

She turned her gaze to the other side of the room and saw Fenris sitting with his back against the wall and holding onto his chest with his hair covering his eyes. He was panting ferociously and coughing up blood.

"Fenris!" she screamed in terror and rushed to him limping herself. She fell on her knees in front of him and took a hold of his gauntlets to see the wound he was hiding. "Please don't ever do that again."

"I will if you won't," he muttered in a husky voice, shoving his arm away from her grip and pressing it against the wound again.

"Stop it, you flaming stubborn idiot. Let me see," she pleaded in agitation. "Now, Fenris!"

He growled in pain and started panting again, as he let her examine the wound.  _Shit._ He had three giant teeth marks on his chest through his armour that let out streams of flowing blood. She grabbed him slowly and looked at his back, which held the same marks.

"Anders needs to see you, immediately," she shouted and proceeded to get up and walk to him.

Fenris grabbed her by the gauntlet forcefully and looked at her through his bloody white hair. "No."

"What do you mean no?" she asked aggressively, frowning as she eyed his tired eyes.

"No," he repeated flatly and panted.

"So this is as far as you go then? Wanna die here before you kill your blighted master?" she asked determinedly and took a hold of his forceful gauntlet.

"He'll kill me," he growled as he looked down and raised his eyes up at her through his frowning eyebrows and panted ferociously again.

"What do you mean he'll kill you?" she asked in outrage and tried to get up again.

Fenris pulled her again strongly to him and cursed in Tevinter, " _Vishatta avada khar,_ " he muttered, annoyed, and coughed heavily, "Listen to me."

"I'm trying but you keep making no sense!" Hawke said and thought she'd just have to save the time until she convinced him to see reason and strip him from his armour.

"You know," he said angrily, "What my markings do," he continued frowning and let off a contained growl in pain.

"They deflect magic and burn mana," she said flatly. "It can't work that way with healing, they're not attacks!"

"They are if the mage doesn't want to do it," he said coughing.

"What do you mean?" she asked and raised an eyebrow. Healing from a hateful mage only made the markings deflect the magic and torture him even more? Danarius was clearly a flaming butthole of a genius when he thought that out. "Ugh, sod it."

She took the remaining healing potion she had in her pocket and shoved it in his mouth. He coughed a lot of it out with blood and she growled in frustration.

"I have compresses in my pack. I need to strip you down," she said with a controlled voice, as her heart kept throbbing in her chest from all the tension.

"So much for not getting me out of my armour," he smirked provocatively as he panted and growled in pain again.

She quickly unfastened his chest plate and shoulder pads and looked at him with worried eyes, wondering if she did something wrong. He looked at her blankly and pointed to his back. She turned behind him and undid all the holders from his dark shirt, carefully constructed to make it easy to open up in order to be beaten and whipped. He had old small scars all across his back from spiky whips. She swallowed heavily and took the whole shirt off and threw it away nearby.

She rushed into her pocket and grabbed all the compresses she could find and placed them carefully on each separate wound. She turned to his front and placed another three on his chest and he kept trying not to scream. "These won't hold, Fenris. There must be something we can do," she shouted in frustration as she looked back at Anders who was still healing the others.

Fenris looked down and hid his face through his hair and stopped breathing. He pressed his eyes closed and said with a determined voice, "You do it."

"What?" she asked while raising an eyebrow. "You mean, heal you? I can't do that, I don't know jack shit about how to," she shouted aggressively while holding a compress pushed against his chest as one of the wounds started spilling blood again. He grabbed her by the arm and eyed her unyieldingly, undaunted by her plea and dead-set on his request.

She paused and looked right into his tired green eyes. What else could she do? She had to try. She wasn't ill-intentioned, she didn't hate him. It was worth a shot, even if it didn't work. He was dying either way and she couldn't waste more time until he bled out completely.

"If I do this, you need to trust me," she said in the most serious tone and inhaled anxiously.

He breathed heavily while looking at her with ferocious tigerish eyes.

"I trust you," he said flatly and contained his painful breathing.

Hawke almost forgot how one achieved the simple act of breathing, as she closed her eyes, tormented by the thought of accidentally killing him. The image of him never opening his eyes again haunted her blood and made it freeze inside her veins. She cleaned his wounds first, carefully moving the compress across his strong, sculptured chest and inhaled heavily.

 _Here goes nothing,_ she said to herself as she charged her energy and focused on her hands. She would be lying if she said she was a rookie in this healing business; her father used to do it all the time for some of his closest friends in Lothering who swore to keep their mouth shut about it. She remembered how the spell consisted of three moves : channel, sustain and shoot right in the centre of the wound. She thought of how she used to throw her sword forcefully into stuff and calculated her shot in the distance. It could've been the same movement. She had to charge, or channel it in this case, sustain the force, in this case the energy, and shoot right in the middle.

_Fuck me sideways, if I kill him he'll take me right in the void with him._

He gave a small contained flinch as she started to shoot the light into his wound. She controlled it tiresomely and focused on the bleeding whores. She tried not to make a sudden move and divert it elsewhere, Maker blighted armpits only knew what could happen if she did. He stood there austerely, not making one damned move and resisted. She moved to his back and cleaned the wounds there too, then shot her remaining energy into them.

"Tell me I'm not making it worse," she said in a faint whisper.

"Try harder," he muttered knightly, placing his arms on his bent knees.

"What?" she asked in outrage.

He rolled his eyes and coughed heavily, "Channel it harder."

She sighed hard and got a hold of his shoulder with one hand and with the other singled out the healing light in the centres. He flinched again and growled, trying to contain it as much as he could. It was damned flabbergasting how his wounds hurt like a lion but his markings barely burned from the magic darting at him.

As the wounds started to close leaving only the blood that was flowing on the streams drown by the markings, they started slowly fading into the white burned-like threads.

"I did it? Maker's breath, I did it," she said in-between trying not to gasp in astonishment from the fortunate end-game vibrating into her eyes and making her almost sure she was dreaming. "Was it really bad?"

"No," he said flatly and blotted his forehead forcefully.

"Well, this was a sodding nightmare. But, let's look at the bright side. Not only are you alive and well, I also won one of the bets," she said smiling and grooming his back from the remaining blood stains with the compress.

"Thank you, Hawke," Fenris said flatly, staring blankly in the distance. She turned to him and saw him ducking his gaze down quickly at the ground with a weary, desolated face.

"Don't mention it," she said warmly, grooming the last of the blood away from his sculpture-like chest.

"I won't, if you won't," he said vapidly, smirking in his tortured look.

"Andraste's ass, guys, what in the sodding Void are you two doing there?" Varric shouted with a revitalized voice. "Everyone alive?"

"Alive enough," Hawke shouted back and gave off a short laugh as Fenris drew a small grin through his bloody hair. "Oh, I almost haven't noticed, but you'd look really nice as a redhead."

"I should stick my head into the belly of dragons more often," Fenris said sarcastically as he tried to get up.

Hawke laughed softly and gave him her hand, pulling him up and holding him by the hip as he was crumbling back down in imbalance.

"That was enough touching for one day," he said containing his smile. "I can take it from here."

"As you wish," Hawke said nonchalantly trying not to grin and gave him his shirt and chest plate back so he wouldn't have to bend again to get them.


	9. The Lungs of Hell: Never Walk Alone

"So, I guess I am the handsome rebel mage who saves the maiden from a dragon after all," Hawke said while approaching Anders, giving away a small grin.

"Hawke, your tooth," Anders said as he widened his eyes and pointed at his mouth.

"What? Oh shit," she shouted in terror as she cupped her maxillary.  _Sodding little blighted fucker, may his bones rot along with Andraste's tits 'cause that's as far as he can get in seeing breasts,_ she thought as she remembered Carver punching her in the jaw.

"I'm pretty sure it landed somewhere over here… or was it there?" Varric said awkwardly as he scratched his head and looked around.

"I knew this place would bite my ass off … or in this case, Carver punching my tooth off," she said sighing, then gave her brother a homicidal look.

"And to think these people lived in here … voluntarily! What in the blazes for?" Varric muttered in sarcastic wonder as he kept bending over and looking for the tooth.

"I don't know, but my temper is getting fearsomely shorter than you," Hawke said aggressively as she joined Varric in his search.

"I'll abstain from any comments seeing as how we almost became no less than a sack of oatmeal for that dragon just a minute ago," Varric said as he frowned at her. "Well, this place is certainly growing on me. Kinda like a tumor."

"Huh, tell me about it," Hawke said dispiritedly as she got on her knees near the dragon's corpse.

"As if that's not enough," Varric muttered in annoyance walking over to another part of the room to look for the tooth. "Well, look on the bright side – well, my bright side – not only did I see you slay an ogre, I also witnessed you riding a dragon and killing it all in one sodding hour."

"No you didn't," she said warmly, narrowing her eyes in suspicion, "If you were indeed conscious to witness it you might have gotten your facts straight."

"What?" Varric asked in a hazy bewildered voice as he raised an eyebrow.

"I slayed no dragon," Hawke said wolfishly.

"Bullshit," Varric said in annoyance.

"It's true. Fenris gave the killing blow," Hawke said smiling at the dwarf and winked at him, as if admitting defeat was suddenly a wise and rewarding choice. "I just stood there under the blighted beast's claw and almost drowned in the cascade of blood that fell onto my pretty face."

"That true, elf?" Varric asked as he turned his head to Fenris who was limping in search for the tooth himself. He gave Hawke a contained look and she nodded, seeming like the two exchanged a telepathic agreement.

"It is," Fenris said flatly, approaching them like a moving statue. "I was her knight in … darkened armour," he continued sarcastically.

"Well, wouldn't you want to be her knight in no armour whatsoever?" Varric muttered in annoyance, accidentally unmasking his friendly concern.

"Varric?"

"Yes, Hawke?"

"I found my tooth!" she said childishly and brought him a small piece of orichalcum.

Varric looked at her with the most confused face ever, "Is this some kind of joke I'm not supposed to get?"

"What? No. Anders, come stick it back into my stubborn mouth!" she shouted eagerly as she smiled.

"Hawke?"

"Yes, Varric?"

"That's a piece of rock," he said awkwardly, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't believe you," she said aggressively, narrowing her eyes.

"Hawke, are you alright?" Varric asked with a concerned look.

"Of course I'm alright," she said in an outrageous voice and frowned at him.

Fenris looked down with a guilty, haunted face. She was hazy and disoriented from all the mana and stamina withdrawal. That crazy, stubborn woman, always keeping her chin up even on the verge of death. That stupid, even he had to admit, honest woman who would have sacrificed all her energy on saving him even if he hadn't pushed her so determinedly into doing it. He felt inappropriate for making her do something she hated, but remained distracted and flabbergasted nonetheless, by the curious absence of pain from his markings even if the mage despised the act of doing so.

He was in denial, though. If he hadn't gathered up his remaining strength and rushed to plunge his sword into the dragon's throat, in a split second Hawke would have been dead and couldn't get any deader… unless she had another serpent up her sleeve. He pressed his eyes closed, amazed at how he had to think of such nonsense and keep his vigilance even in this situation, where they both almost died and both saved each other.

He walked over to the dragonling corpses and shoved them away from the death centre, as he calculated in his mind that this might have been the place where the tooth landed, and rightfully so. His guess was dead on. He picked up the tooth and approached her shyly, trying not to look her in the eyes, "Here it is."

"Oh," she said with a drunken smile, "There it is! Thank you, Father."

"Hawke, I'll ask this one more time – are you alright?" Varric almost shouted out of fear, as she was definitely seeing ghosts now.

"Of course I'm alright, Ser Dwarf. Thank you for the basilisk skin steel. You are a miracle worker!" she said courteously, in-between staggering from left to right.

"What's happening here?" Anders said while approaching the group.

"Hawke's not making any sense. She thinks Broody is her 'Father' and she called me 'Ser Dwarf', ugh," Varric said while gesturing towards her in annoyance.

"What?" Anders asked in outrage, being confused to no end.

"King Alistair! What a surprise, fancy meeting you here! Came back to gloat did you?" Hawke asked impertinently while dangling on her feet.

"She thinks I'm the king? This is worse than I thought," Anders said sighing and putting a hand over his forehead. He turned away quickly for his backpack.

"What the hell is happening here?" Varric shouted in outrage at Anders.

"I don't like this place, Father. It smells of lies and death," she said as she approached Fenris. "I know you're the expert and all but do we really need to linger here more than we need to?"

Fenris swallowed heavily and tried to think of what he could say so she wouldn't have some panic attack from whatever mental haze she was in.

"We will get out of here soon. I promise," he said chivalrously, trying not to inhale too heavily.

"You always say that and then you trick me into staying some more. You're such an evil old man," she said warmly, but frowning nonetheless.

"This is getting from kinda creepy to utterly abhorrent," Varric said anxiously, approaching Hawke.

"Enough of your tricks. I'm the taking the lead," Hawke said assertively, raising a fist up in the air. She started walking towards the giant stairs. Varric was flinching and shaking his head and gestured to Fenris to follow and stop her. She sensed the danger from instinct and turned to them with a drawn out sword.

"No more of your pointless checks, Father. Take your dwarf and leave me be," she said bitterly in a defensive position. "I'm out of here," she said flatly and turned away to walk.

"Andraste's purple sodding butt, what the hell are we supposed to do? Tie her down and gag her?" Varric asked in desperation, raising his hands in the air as a peace sign.

"What the hell is she doing?" Carver asked approaching them.

"Well, if  _you_ don't know, we've certainly hopped on the death boat of crazy and utterly ridiculous," Varric said sarcastically, looking at a disappearing Hawke and back at him in anxiety.

"Stop her!" Anders shouted as he came back from the dark hallway.

"How in the Void do you think  _we_ can stop her?" Varric shouted in anger, looking from person to person in frustration.

"Ugh, you're useless," Anders shouted back at him and ran towards the other hallway after the giant stairs where Hawke disappeared into. They all followed in a rush and Anders turned his head to them with a homicidal look as if telling them not to make any loud noises.

Anders rushed in silence towards the shadow that lingered after the left corner of the hallway. They hid back against the wall and after appearing to count something in his head, he gave away his position and walked in the open field, casting something quickly at the figure.

Hawke turned rapidly with her hand drawn in the air as if blocking the spell, but the light bumped into her barrier and ricocheted back to Anders with force, throwing him feet away and paralyzing him. They all assumed half-defensive, confused positions and looked at the mage.

"Holy Shit, this is way too crazy for my little brain," Varric said awkwardly, trying to mask the terror in his voice.

Fenris struck a giant frown and set out to run after her, not caring if he would be stricken down. Whatever magic she would be using, he would deflect most of it… unless hers was immune to his markings, by any ridiculous stretch of imagination. No, they didn't deflect it back then because she was well-intentioned, but whatever Hawke was now was clearly not a well-wishing puppy-eyed little woman. As he ran slowly and turned his lyrium glow on, tens of feet away he saw her collapse to the ground.

As she fell unconscious, the paralyzing haze that enveloped Anders faded away and Carver raised him up from the ground.

"Blondie, I don't know what the hell you're doing, but if you don't fix her, I'm going to kill you," Varric shouted self-determinedly, caught up in a fit of confusing rage.

Fenris's blood froze as he realized she could have been possessed by some spirit in these caverns in her weak state. He looked at Anders, then back at Hawke and remained paralyzed much like the mage was a minute ago, as his head was boiling with confusion and fear. He pressed his eyes closed and ran to her, getting on his knees and turning her face up. She looked peaceful again, a bright and warm face, just as she looked when he caught her sleeping in the armchair when she hid in her grandparents' mansion.

"Get away from her!" Anders shouted from afar, rushing towards them.

"No," he muttered self-assured, keeping a statue-like unaffected look.

"Fine, get killed, whatever, just let me examine her," Anders muttered in annoyance and got on his knees on the other side of her body opposite to where Fenris was staying.

"Wouldn't you get killed as well in this manner?" Fenris asked as he frowned to the mage incessantly.

"Shut up," Anders said self-assured and started casting a very soft, faint light into her chest. He exhaled in relief and turned his head to look for something in his pack.

"Don't just stand there mute, tell us what's going on!" Varric shouted at Anders, gesturing with his hands in the air.

"Give me a blighted minute!" Anders said in anger as he looked in his pocket.

"Now, Anders!" Fenris, Carver and Varric all shouted in a choir.

"I had to check if she was possessed, even if it seemed rather impossible," Anders muttered in annoyance and gave Fenris a narrow look as he finished the sentence.

"Then what is it?" Fenris asked fiercely, but keeping a low tone as not to unmask his frustration.

"Yeah, Blondie, tell us already. My patience is wearing thin and so is Bianca's, if you get my drift," Varric growled again.

"If you did something to her, you're dead, mage," Carver said with disgust as he pointed assaultively at him.

Anders sighed as he reached for some spindleweed and started stretching it above her head. "I keep forgetting she's a stubborn abstinent mage in self-denial, like a virgin taking a vow of bloody chastity," he said in an annoyed tone and continued, "She used up all her magic  _after_ she used up all her physical strength. This could have been her funeral."

"But she cast that spell, or redirected it at you or whatever," Varric said impatiently.

"Yeah, and that's what made her collapse. Mana regenerates slowly, but she didn't need a lot of it for that one… well, it was still something. I don't really get it," Anders said bewilderedly.

"So that mental breakdown she had was from an empty fuel, well, fuels?" Varric asked in a lower tone, starting to cool off.

"Yes. Templars act like this when they're in mana withdrawal, blurred vision, paranoid behaviour and hallucinating stuff. Mages don't go through this though, because our mana regenerates naturally, but she isn't your ordinary mage. She barely used any in years, much to her stupidity."

Fenris frowned at Anders' last words and muttered, "Forgive us for being uneducated, but how is that stupidity?"

"Because without practice, her mana goes haywires when being used. Using magic frequently strengthens mana regeneration, it makes us immune to the stuff Templars go through when they're out of it and basically teaches the body that mana is something that belongs to it naturally instead of being a foreign object that needs to be taken in. But even so, it's beyond my understanding how she could have gotten to this point. It's not so easy to burn  _all_ the mana you have to complete zero."

"But Hawke did practice magic on the way here. She played with the fire in camp and made dragons out of it," Fenris said while rolling his eyes at the last bit.

"Using two or three fireballs is nothing compared to powerful spells," Anders said as he reached in his pack again. "The question remains as to what powerful magic she used, because I certainly didn't see her using any."

"She shot a purple cloud in the dragon's mouth," Fenris said flatly, recalling the event. He was the only one still conscious to witness it.

Anders laughed, "One entropic cloud is not much to make her see ghosts."

Fenris looked down with guilt and pressed his lips together, trying not to let the words out, but it would have been irresponsible of him to keep a pointless secret.

"She healed me," he said calmly, remaining an expressive statue.

"What? Like one little healing spell for a scratch? I didn't see you dying or anything," Anders said laughing again.

"I had six giant wounds from being taken in and chewed by the dragon. You were playing dead at the time," Fenris said impertinently as he frowned at the mage.

"What? Are you crazy?" Anders shouted in anger at him. "You let her perform a massive healing spell on you? What in the Void were you thinking? I could have easily done that for you or why the hell am I even here?"

"Calm yourself, mage. You were healing the others at the time," Fenris said as he frowned, deflecting from the real reason Hawke had to do it.

"Right. Because usually I go by the logic of healing the least wounded and taking the worse cases last," Anders shouted sarcastically as he looked restlessly for something in his pack.

"You need something, Blondie?" Varric asked awkwardly, trying to cut in the boiling tension.

"Is it that obvious?" Anders asked sarcastically, ignoring the dwarf.

He rose from the ground and started looking frustrated in different directions. He walked over to a giant lyrium vein hanging amid a massive black rock formation and started melting some from a specific corner.

"This will hurt her but I don't have any potions lying around," Anders said as he walked back to the others.

Fenris struck a frown and instinctually held Hawke tighter and drew her closer to his chest as to defend her. "How exactly is this going to help?"

"She needs the lyrium. If I don't give it to her now she might wake up with her brains all messed up."

"And you know this so certainly?" Fenris asked calmly, but in a fit of suspicious anger.

"Well, I didn't exactly sign up for the  _Warrior Mages in Abstinence Guild_  to know for sure," Anders said sarcastically to Fenris. "For now, I have to treat her like a human Templar."

"Then how is this going to hurt her?" Carver shouted in frustration, holding his head so it wouldn't fall from terror.

"The lyrium is too raw. It will burn her throat and stomach and she will probably be in pain for a few days, maybe even make her cast spells accidentally without realizing it," Anders said bitterly, getting on his knees again near an unconscious Hawke. "Stop fidgeting so much, elf, she's not your dying wife and I'm only trying to help her here," Anders said aggressively to Fenris as he held stubbornly onto her armour.

"Give it to her already, Blondie. I'm starting to piss in my pants from this nightmare," Varric shouted at Anders approaching him.

"Hold her head," Anders told Fenris bitterly as he started pouring the lyrium into a bottle and then stuck it hermetically in her mouth. "As much as I want to punch you and kill you right now, you're the strongest one here. As soon as she starts getting agitated, restrain her," Anders said self-confidently to Fenris as he took the bottle out of Hawke's mouth.

"This is worse than anything I could imagine happening here," Varric said anxiously while watching Hawke with insistence.

"And all this could have been avoided if she weren't so stupid and helped this blighted dog," Anders said with a narrow look directed at Fenris.

Normally he would have argued that, but Fenris didn't have the right to, in this case. He couldn't deny that this was a dangerous move neither he nor Hawke knew would be so. He couldn't take comfort from the fact that she would have done it either way, however. As soon as he inhaled heavily, he watched Hawke with a tense look and prepared to hold her down.

As she started fidgeting and moving in pain, Fenris got a hold of her as strongly as he could. For all her clown mage physique he made fun of her for, she was tigerishly strong.

"Turn your damn glow bit on," Anders said as he backed away. "It will dispel any instinctual magic attempt."

Fenris nodded knightly at Anders and turned his lyrium markings on, as Carver rushed in frustration to hold her legs.

"She's gonna be alright after this, won't she, Blondie? Blondie!" Varric shouted at a haunted-looking Anders. He was hearing stuff again.

"I'll go take care of the lot," Carver said looking terrified. "You get a hold of her legs," he continued looking at Varric.

"I can't believe I'm saying this but – Ancestors guide us," Varric said as he sighed and replaced Carver.

"Come on, mage," Carver said bitterly as he looked at Anders. "Now, Anders!" he shouted.

"Just punch him," Fenris muttered angrily. Were they in a different, more peaceful situation he would have grinned all the way to Antiva while saying that.

"Right," Carver said bewilderedly and slapped Anders across the face. He woke up and they both ran across the giant hallway and turned right as the mage directed.

"Elf, just promise me you won't crush her or something," Varric said in concern, as he watched Fenris struggling to hold her immobilized.

She started to scream in pain and Fenris put a gauntlet over her mouth so no surprise could come their way. He growled in frustration and tried to hold her as strongly as he could with only one arm. She grabbed his weaker arm and stuck her gauntlet claw in his flesh. Fenris tried not to react and kept his firm grip on her.

"Her hands!" Varric screamed as she took her gauntlet out of Fenris's skin and formed a fireball that she struck randomly above them.

"Vishatta," Fenris shouted in anger as he took a hold of her hand again and firmly tied them together.

"She was right. Fuck the eighteen generations of my ancestors, I'm never coming to this pithole again," Varric muttered as he sat stubbornly on her legs since he couldn't hold them firmly with his hands.

"Seconded," Fenris said flatly, wishing he had three arms to stop the agonizing image of Hawke beneath his eyes.

* * *

**Deep Roads, Day 6**

"Maker's breath, that smell," Hawke muttered in disgust as she woke up in camp with her vision blurred out entirely. "Is that me?"

"Hawke!" Varric shouted as he ran to where they put her after Fenris and Carver carried her back to camp. It took a while, but she finally stopped with the fidgeting in pain and the panic attack that came along with it. She just succumbed back in deep sleep and they started pacing forward and backwards with impatience and anxiety no matter how much Anders tried to reason with them that she was going to be alright.

"I thought you already took your stupid vengeance with the trapping me and falling facedown into dirt last week," Hawke said frowning as she recognized the voice, but still couldn't see clearly.

"The spindleweed was all Anders this time," Varric said as he laughed in relief, "And it was necessary."

"Maker's soggy ass, why would you  _necessarily_  pour that sh.. that thing on my face?" she asked in outrage and started coughing as she felt the flaming burn in her throat.

"Oh, interesting. So you don't remember the whole deal with you going haywires and hallucinating then falling on your face in a fit of almost fatal exhaustion?" Varric said warmly, trying not to laugh so awkwardly.

She rose from her improvised bed, stumbling her leg over some medicinal crap potion that Anders probably placed by her side and Varric dexterously caught it before it shattered into tiny little crap potion pieces on the ground.

"I remember a lot of shouting and swearing in Tevinter, but not much else," she said while inappropriately smiling in this life or death situation.

"Let us jog your memory then," Varric said charmingly as he took a seat next to her. "So, it was dark and the wind blew viciously in a fit of deathly heat …"

"Long story short, Varric," Hawke said as she started frowning at him and took a hold of the back of her neck which hurt like a lion.

"Long story short, you wasted all your mana when you were already almost dead from exhaustion, you started seeing ghosts and became overly paranoid, drew your sword at us, ran, Anders tried to paralyze you but you reflected the spell onto him or something, you collapsed, then he stuck a pile of raw lyrium in your mouth and you started fidgeting like a maniac in pain and lastly, you fell asleep like the dead," Varric said rapidly, then caught his breath and remained amazed at how we said it.

"That all, huh?" Hawke said sarcastically, appearing unimpressed.

Through her blurry vision she saw a ghostly white-headed figure approaching her with a big black round thing in its hand. She pressed her eyes together then opened them again and the image started clearing just a bit.

"Good …morning, I suspect," Fenris said in a flat, contained and deep voice, pointing the sack of water towards her.

"It may be morning, but it isn't good," Hawke said sadly, growling softly at the pain at the back of her neck and in her stomach.

He frowned and shook the sack of water as for her to take it already and she gave him an amused smile."No, thank you. I don't want any more stuff going down my drain," she said stubbornly while looking at him and raising a palm in refusal.

Fenris remained a stubborn statue in front of Hawke. They started a silent staring match as he kept his knightly frown on her and his fastidious lips flinched shortly, "Take it or I'm going to hit you."

"You will? I'm feeling loved already," she said sarcastically, putting a hand on her heart area.

"Either stop putting yourself in danger or stop being so pseudo-independent," he said flatly, drawing a sensual grin as he used her own words to him from when he hurt his foot the day before.

"Yes, Sir," she said sarcastically and took the water in an impertinent, forceful way from his hands.

Hawke took a sip from the goatskin sack of water, but soon realized with every following one just how dehydrated she was. The warm threads of liquid brushed onto her insides softly, screaming for more nurturing than your usual drink. She stopped instinctually as not to waste a precious resource and gave it back to Fenris. The water worked miracles, so it seemed, as her vision started to become much clearer, the blur dissipating into a vivid image of a distinct, delightful sight.

But lying beyond the difference between who was now standing in front of her with an honourable, patient look and what became of him before she lost consciousness... only flashes darted in her eyes, cruel tricks of the mind or maybe memories tempered with. She saw the dragon's throat opening and spilling its guts on her face, but that was not the most terrifying, ultimately corollary picture her tired eyes had witnessed in that room. No, it was a truly malignant little flash of a sudden death.

Only it wasn't death, it was near death. She remembered now. Fenris thrown down against the wall, panting and growling in pain, full of blood dripping from his hair, his chest, his back. She needn't have tried to conceal herself from him. She knew she had to help him whatever it took. She couldn't truly think of his death now, it simply had the fullness of catastrophe. Maybe she was succumbing to a familiar weakness, that of not suffering the sight of torture or injustice, the senseless screams of the starving. She didn't know. Maybe she was being the common mortal, believing if she put a stop to all the mess, all the terror, the pain, then somehow the horror was under her command. Foolish endless desire to annul the darkness.

But there was more to it, maybe? Foolish desire, indeed. What she saw, what had distracted her, the presence, undeniably, it would come to a halt if she knew it for certain, but she didn't.

She just remembered the flashbacks, how his back was almost broken and shattered, how he moaned and stuttered. And for one harrowing split second the sounds he made were as terrible as the sound that came from the dying men she had seen in her past, only much more powerful. Other dying men... they were crushed like insects into the snow. But this was the picture of a strong presence, almost eternal-looking, that bled and panted horribly and was shrinking rapidly into a single small point that was being annihilated, out of her hands, that she couldn't allow. So she didn't.

She could almost smell the blood pumping and spilling out of him. As she healed him, for one heady moment she felt strong relief, security, obliterating every recollection of the horrors that had deformed her for so long. Every evil rapture, every small terror, seemed unreal. But then again, she'd doubt it all in a split second anyway. Maybe she felt profound joy, maybe she was enveloped in other much too similar ... fallacies.

But that so suspected "fallacy" stirred in Hawke, collecting strength and reason so fast to catch up with it and deny it even as it grew out of control. She knew it for what it was, in part - something monstrous and enormous, as unnatural to her as the sun was natural to the earth.

Fenris struck another of his eternal frowns, almost shimmering with inconvenience, or something of the sort... his usual contradictory inconvenience with her. The voice in Hawke's head had broken. His face was a miracle of seeming purity and awe, and it was standing in front her alive, which was good, so very good.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Fenris asked austerely, shaking his head as if in protest, such a colossal intrusion for her to look at him, as always.

"Your arm," she said with a concerned insistent look.

Across his left arm there was a deep and long cut and everywhere else he appeared swollen and bruised. His white hair glistened despite the dirt in it and his eyes burned like two dead things.

"What about it?" he asked serenely, not even looking at it.

Of course he would. Only a gigantic army of slavers and magisters would have thrown him off in the face of danger. Not this, not much else. He just stood there like a true soldier, unperturbed, in complete awareness of his state. Probably refused Anders a hundred times and barked to let him be.

"Forgive me for my oh, so very rude prying, but I don't remember leaving you in such a grotesque state," Hawke said in self-denial, trying to find answers she already suspected.

He seemed tired and beaten, yet his beauty held sway. He didn't need the shadows of the Deep Roads or some torchlight in the camp to flatter him. And there was a fierceness in him in those torchlights that she hadn't seen before. She felt more fear at that moment than ever during the earlier battles and arguments, and she hated those who made her feel fear.

He hesitated and looked the other way. "Take a walk with me," he said undauntedly, ignoring her question.

"Uh, odd," Hawke said as she frowned in suspicion.

"I think we've already gone past the point of distrust," Fenris said in a deep determined voice, without moving a finger.

"Fine," she sneered, and got up from her sleeping place.

They walked out of camp well-prepared for venturing any minute, nevertheless. Fenris strolled nonchalantly along the red and blue lyrium veins on the giant rock formations and as soon as Hawke wanted to say something, he turned to her with a blank, but tigerish look.

"I owe you an apology," he said chivalrously as he looked down, then back up, but not directly at her.

"Might wanna look me in the eye when you try to make it sound genuine, next time," Hawke said self-assured, crossing her arms and grinning.

"Why would I even bother to make the effort of wasting my daily word count, if I hadn't meant it?" Fenris asked her as he struck a colossal frown, his head starting to hurt from yet another setback in their stupid freakshow relationship. In all honesty, what did he do wrong now, except the only thing he was apologizing for, anyway?

"You're not a liar, not a contemptible one at least, but you're not exactly sure what you're apologizing for, are you?" Hawke said as she gave a short warm laugh and eyed him deeply.

"Your collapse would have been avoided, had I not stubbornly asked you to kill all your reserves on me. The reason is quite clear and the apology horribly simple in its intent. Is that not enough?" he said between his teeth, looking at her directly now. She just had to stand there and overexamine him, be paranoid and stubborn. Yet again, he would be a hypocrite to demean her because of her instincts. He had the same blind instinct.

She ignored his explanation and kept her eyes insistently at his wound. "I did that to you, didn't I?"

He looked down and hesitated, remembering the agonizing image of her agitated, hitting and scratching him and screaming.

"Oh, well, maybe you should just be praying that I don't do it again. For I would have done it either way. The healing you I mean, not the wounding you part," she said. She stepped around him and stretched our her arms to him. "Face it, I'm a sucker for doing the right thing," she said as she drew an awkward, almost sad smile.

And there it was. That stupid, stubborn woman who just couldn't let him, or anyone else, die, before she did. Why must he argue about this with her or with himself, though? The impending reason to what became of him that she had to heal him was that he put a sword through a beast so it wouldn't crush her, despite his exhaustion, despite the last bits of life he had in his bones. Wasn't it ultimately the same? Bah, she didn't have to use her stratagems to make him brood anymore - he was volunteering, all while becoming excellent at it.

He hesitated, but refused himself to conceal his one clear opinion. "I'm becoming more and more certain that you  _are_ indeed, going to do it again," he said as he started to draw a genuine, broad smile.

"Seems you've figured me out already, haven't you?" she said as she brushed her stubborn bits of hair away from her face.

"On the contrary," he said knightly, shaking his head and keeping his smile.

Her eyes rolled from his head to his feet and back into his own sensual, tortured gaze, "Close your eyes," she said, nodding only once in a military way, not letting her smile leak too much eagerness.

He hesitated yet again and looked the other way, his reason losing function, but holding on to a familiar security, "Why?"

"Oh, I think we've already gone past the point of distrust," she said unyielding, using his own argument against him yet again. She approached him in silence and kept an austere, but warm look.

He gave a small contained laugh, "Is that an order?"

"Yes," she said self-determined.

He wished she hadn't said it so abruptly, brought it so to the point, yet he didn't actually know what she was going to do. That was Hawke, assuring your safety, making you let your guard down after all the arguments and tension ceased. But he nodded and his lips pressed together in a bitter smile.

Heartbreakingly innocent he seemed in the dark midst of the hallway, as he nodded politely and closed his eyes. The hallway was fatally silent and barren, like it was whispering some ancient language that welcomed death. It was like the Veil shifted and it ached for death as death was passing through it.

But the split second he felt the foreign energy going through his veins, in his left arm and slowly dissipating through every swollen and bruised area, his flinching face had suddenly smoothed out as if some shock had robbed it of expression. He succumbed into the mending light and remained a statue, because if he had allowed himself to think of anything else, do anything else, it would have all but crushed him with endless questions, paranoia, distrust, the blind instinct.

But the place didn't ache for death, or at least he wasn't. It just smelled of vegetal and was filled with fresh, breathable air.

"Thank you," he said as he opened his eyes. "That was …"

She nodded, but she looked miserable, and as luck would have it, beautiful, too. "I rather thought so," she said. "But I didn't think you would agree."

"Whether I agree or not, does not really have an effect on a deed already done," he said defensively as he looked away.

"Is that your Qunari way of deflecting from seeing eye to eye with me? Literally, even?" she said as she grinned a bit too differently than the usual way.

His eyes flinched with a slight lift to his eyebrows. He was at a loss for words and appeared as if he just realized something.

She shook her head in amusement and crossed her arms. "Well, at least it's something to ponder on," she said warmly and proceeded to walk way.

* * *

**Deep Roads, Day 8**

"Oh I swear I'm gonna find that son-of-a-bitch – sorry, Mother, - and I will  _kill_ him!" Varric shouted in a fit of extreme rage, as Bartrand walked away from the other side of the sealed door.

"Rest assured, I'll have his head by morning," Hawke said in a determined voice, raising her fists.

Hawke's dedicated promise soothed Varric's exploding heat, because he sighed in relief and emptied out his boiling mind. "Let's just hope we can find a way out of here."

"All roads lead to Minrathous," she recited courteously, but soon realized she was offending at least two people there with that quote. "Sorry," she said awkwardly, looking at a frowning Varric and Fenris. "What I meant was, uh – "

"Save it, Pantaloons," Varric cut her quickly.

As they came into another giant room and saw Hawke swallow heavily, Fenris quickly drew his sword and went for the shades that started emerging from the stone. The group split in the two opposing rows of stairs. A rough haze started vibrating around his ears, as he recalled having seen something lying in the distance that was foreign and indistinguishable. He looked in the distance again only to see Hawke, followed by Carver, go right into the middle of a grotesque horde of animated rock formations.

"Hawke, what the hell are you doing?" Varric screamed as he slided off the stairs and started shooting fire arrows at the group.

She whirlwound and distanced the rock wraiths from one another as Carver slew them one by one. That was the most the group saw of her and her brother communicating, indirectly nevertheless, as the last few days since the "you're dead to me" fiasco, Hawke seemed to have really meant it.

"Bloody stone, what were those things?" Varric muttered in annoyance.

"Giant rocks that were so bored of lying around and watching darkspawn get all the applauses, they decided to come to life and invite us for tea and cakes?" Hawke said sarcastically as he put her sword back in its back holder.

"They were supposed to be dwarven legends. Holy sodding Mother of Green Cheeses, first an ogre, then a dragon, then you going psycho, add that flaming bloody bastard of a brother betraying us and now  _this_? Remind me never to listen to my intuition again, Hawke."

"But your intuition was good, Varric. Had you come here without us, who knows in what kind of belly of a beast you would be drowning in with acid and calling for your ancestors right now?" she said warmly and reassuringly.

"Hmph, good point," Varric said as he felt the urge to pat her on the back, had he been taller. "I swear, Hawke, if we get out of here alive, you can smash all the human-devouring tables in the world, for all I care, I'm putting all of Kirkwall on my tab for you."

"You really know how to see the bigger picture, don't you? That's why you're such a good storyteller, isn't it?" Hawke said warmly as she slowed down to pat him on the back.

"It's the master's tactful mix of foreseeing the larger scheme of things by making use of the small, deeply unnoticed subtleties that makes them so great," Varric said self-assured, holding charmingly onto his jacket.

"Oh, I love it when you go all philosophical. Makes my ladyparts all dazed and confused," Hawke said sarcastically, but in a deep provocative voice. It was astonishing how she could make light of a serious situation and become as inappropriate as a dirty old mule pissing on a golden rug in the king's throne room.

They got into a massive room with curious looking pillars, grand structures and… more rock wraiths. As they battled the hordes yet again, Hawke went too far, as always, and took care of the ranged whores by herself. Fenris sought to follow her in fear of her going hot-headed haywires again, but quickly ducked down under the rock wraiths as they grouped up against him. Carver was probably annoyed to the deepest pit of the Void by his sister, because he started to put on a show and recklessly went into the group. Fenris got up and pushed him aside forcefully before he could get his head severed.

"Enough," a rock formation said commandingly as it came out of the ground. "You have proven your mettle. I would not see these creatures harmed without need."

"These creatures? A much too practical manner of referring to your own kind," Hawke said assertively, stepping further towards the figure. "And I say being attacked gives us plenty of need."

"They will not assault you further, not without my permission," the rock wraith said unperturbed.

"What in the Void were those things?" Varric asked enraged.

"They hunger," the creature said flatly. "The prophane have lingered here for time beyond memory, feeding on the stones until the need is all they know," it whispered fearsomely.

"They eat the lyrium? Sounds like a healthy diet," Hawke said sarcastically, as she looked around the room. Giant red lyrium veins were adorning every pillar and the blue shimmering in the distance was giving the whole place a grand aura of mystique and death.

"I am not as they are, I am … a visitor," the creature whispered.

"Well that's a fancy way to put it. Seen one desire demon, seen'em all," Hawke said sarcastically as she narrowed her gaze.

"I would not see my feast end. I sense your desire, you wish to leave this place, but you need  _my_ aid to do so," the wraith started commandingly.

"Don't do it," Anders whispered to Hawke.

"What are our options?" Varric asked in a confused tone. For all the crazy they saw here, this actually seemed pretty unimpressive, he suspected.

After the creature explained why they needed its help in a most ghostly manner possible, Hawke shook her head and sighed. "You deal with demons and then it all goes downhill from there… Sorry, Ser Wraith, we're going to find our own way."

"Most unwise," the creature said sharply.

"Why? Are you going to attack us while we yielded our swords down on you?"

"I sense what you are. You have the red things flowing inside of you," the creature said in a faint voice.

"You can start making sense any time now," Hawke said as she raised an eyebrow.

"You hunger," the wraith whispered with all the searing sharpness of an accusation. She felt the creature's energy, it was a presence as venomous and seemingly overpowering as a clear-cut open chest wound in front of the flame.

"Oh, I'm starving," Hawke said sarcastically, as she drew her sword and killed the hideous beast.

They went into the vault, a giant circular formation with the same red lyrium pillars as the previous room. A sharp, distinct vibration flowed in Hawke's veins as she felt the Veil crumble around her.

"This is not good," Hawke said bitterly as she drew her sword out.

The one little possessed rock wraith now seemed like a malnourished poor little kitten compared to the grand stones that were drawn magnetically together into a massive creature formation revolving around a red skeletal haze. A dozen rock wraiths emerged from the ground and shot ranged electric shocks at every one of them.

"Anders, whatever you do – do not, I repeat, do not heal Fenris. Stay away and take care of the rest, do not waste your mana and put on a show," Hawke said sharply with a dead straight face, as she approached him. He nodded silently and ran in a corner, shooting small pointless fireballs at the monster.

They battled it for what seemed like decades. It was almost useless to attack, as the being could quickly deform and reemerge somewhere else, making them waste their energy and become weary to the point of dying out of sheer exhaustion. Hawke kept taunting everything in sight and whenever anything came too close she'd shove them away with her sword to play with them. As for the giant monster, well, it seemed to barricade itself with its own rocks as it came down and started absorbing and channelling dark waves of energy inside its skeletal centre, only to get back up and explode in a magnetic forcefield.

Fenris's head was throbbing from the electricity damage. The more he ran and slashed, the less he could see clearly. When the rock demon first channelled its force and blew up, he screamed at everybody to hide behind a specific pillar which blocked the wave's trajectory entirely. More so than that, he had to drag Carver away as he put on airs and didn't pay attention to the larger scheme of things.

Varric feigned his death or so it appeared, while Anders and Carver were both shoved into some rocks and lost consciousness. Hawke's head was exploding from adrenaline and she made a halt into the thing, but it quickly blew her away and threw her into a wall. Fenris screamed after her and turned his glow harder, but that made the beast go after him with fury. Maybe the demon was striving for his lyrium markings, which made it even more bloody inconvenient.

Unless… what a marvellous devious plan, he constructed, if they could have even been able to pull it off. He started running in the opposite side of the room with the wraith going after him, dismembering itself and going for the farthest end. Before the giant could reemerge again, he would simply change direction every time and it would wake up with him being in the opposite part of the room again. He pulled this stunt restlessly, as he was losing the ability to see and his markings started to burn horrifically bad. He was waiting for Hawke to wake up.

And she did. She came out of her weary haze and rapidly eyed the trick that Fenris was doing on the monster. She quickly heard the voice of her father making fun of her with his endless  _The closer you think you are, the less you actually see,_ and a sharp little idea tickled her tired brain.

She ran to Anders's pack and poured a bottle of raw melted lyrium into her mouth, which burned her throat like ten shots of whiskey taken in at the same time.

She charged all her energy and stood prepared as the beast dismembered itself again. She waved her hands as to form two wings in the air and the magnetic waves of the monster clashed with her own. They repelled each other and the rocks started falling in different directions as the skeletal being remained unprotected. Fenris went right into it and slashed, then quickly jumped away as the rocks came back to revolve around it. They did this a few times, until the beast started pulling them in and they fell on the ground, being dragged to its centre.

Fenris grabbed onto a rock formation and held onto it so he wouldn't be dragged away. He saw Hawke slide right beside him quickly and he instinctually grabbed her hand. He held onto her as strongly as he could, as his eyes starting wearing off and he could only see a blur of red and white and heard Hawke gasping and panting.

His heart stopped as Hawke's gauntlet slipped away from his grip and he tigerishly succeeded to grab it again in a split second.

He growled and turned off his markings, the pain being too much to bear. An infinity of tiny shards and storms of dust were darting at his face and his grip became looser onto the rock he was holding on. His hand slid away and he thrust his claws into the ground. He held onto Hawke's hand tightly and wished he wasn't just gripping onto a severed half of her.

In the blur of red, grey and white, he heard her scream at him to let go.

 _Vishante kaffas, fasta efututo ardenta daemonium, venhedis omniem creatorem et illa femina stulta et rabiosa.*_ Let go? Just so simple as that, let go, let her die. She was an insane and contemptible martyr.

(Something roughly translated to : Burn in hell, fucked up flaming demon, damn all the creators and that stupid crazy woman)

"Let go, you flaming idiot, just sodding trust me," he heard her scream in a very determined and fiercely commanding tone.

He pressed his eyes together, growled and let go of her hand. She disappeared in the red haze and he couldn't see for shit what was going on anymore.

 _Me paenitet, festis tuio ipse kanavurat._ (*I'm sorry, I was the death of you)

In a halt of a second the earth shook heavily and his bits and pieces of his vision started to shatter and stir, but all while becoming clearer from the adrenaline and the shock in his veins. The rocks fell to the ground and he could see a human figure being encircled by dark waves.

He rushed up from the ground and held onto the pommel of his sword in terror, as he saw Hawke wrap her arms around her chest with her eyes closed, enveloped by shades or red and black that dissipated way, as if she shoved them away with strong rancor into non-existence.

"Now, Fenris!" she screamed in a hoarse voice. He rushed to the beast and plunged his sword into the deformed skeletal centre as she jumped out of the killing zone and succumbed into unconsciousness.

That vile little minx… she shook the demon with her repelling force waves to disorient it as it wasted its powers and hunger for Fenris's lyrium again. And the closer he got to it, it would agitate itself even more in a craze of starvation, having the thing it needed reek of the stuff . The lust would only mesmerize it even more.  _You are what you eat_ suddenly received a totally new meaning.

He rose from the ground and kicked the rocks away from his path as he limped towards Hawke, thanking whatever existing or invented god there was that this wasn't the end. He went for a red lyrium vein, but stopped his breathing as he felt fear slowing him down. Anders used blue lyrium. He looked around desperately and remained controlled, eyeing a small blue lyrium… bush, in a dark corner. He punched the lyrium out of it and shoved it into the one of the remaining fires Anders had thrown and that were burning the insides of the soulless rock wraiths. He held the solid lyrium as much above the flame as he could, for he feared what demonic hungry energy would corrupt it, but he had no choice.

"Fenris," he heard Hawke's ghostly hoarse voice stutter nearby. He turned around. "No."

"Don't you need it?" he shouted in anger, confused to no end and feeling his legs tremble.

"No. I'm fine, please…" she muttered in a husky voice as she held onto her stomach and tried to drag herself closer to a wall. "I can't do it," she said as she coughed and rested her back against the wall.

His head was throbbing in desperation. He didn't get any of it and he almost burned himself as he stopped paying attention to the lyrium stone he was holding.

"Don't play games with me, Hawke," he shouted rapidly in anger, "Are you dying or not?"

She coughed again heavily and brushed her forehead with the front of her hand. She shoved the gauntlet out and put her hand on her head and kept panting.

"Of course I'm not dying," she muttered quietly in a husky voice and Fenris could have sworn he saw a ghost of a contained, fierce grin beneath the hair that was hiding her face. She inhaled heavily and appeared to stop breathing, but she quickly spat blood and placed her hands above her bent knees. "Are you?"

"Evidently not," he said in an annoyed, assaultive tone and started to approach her. Whatever pain she was in, it was no simple shock with a few sprinkles of agony. She resisted and kept her controlled posture all while probably exploding from pain and burns inside.

"Go look at the others," she said in a determined voice, pointing at the other side of the room. She continued panting and placed her head between her knees in order to regain full control and awareness.

* * *

**Deep Roads, Day 11**

"So, Fenris," Hawke said awkwardly as she sat next to him in the improvised camp. "Seems like a particular kind of crazy keeps poking at us with a stick."

"It appears so," Fenris said flatly, "Or maybe it pokes at us with a large bat, seeing as how it keeps making the poor decision of choosing us as its dignified beheaders."

She looked down and smiled, as if she enjoyed a private joke inside, "It probably wasn't so bad as the trouble I gave you when I went all hot-headed crazy lady in mana withdrawal."

"It seemed as an appropriate punishment at the time, for lack of a better word," he said looking away, but quickly turned his head to face her, "But you made it go away… yet again," he said as he lifted his eyebrows in a friendly look.

"Hm. I should do this more often. That and tell tragic poet jokes. They seem to be the only ways I could get a smile out of you."

"Getting me out of this forsaken hole will get you the master prize," he said nonchalantly as he started eating the deep mushroom stew Anders made.

"Oh, what's the master prize?" she asked eagerly and started grinning.

"Fulfil your end of the deal and find out," he said firmly and unperturbed, without looking at her.

"What a giant flaming snake you are," she said narrowing her eyes and keeping her grin. You're building up the suspense to make me work for it, aren't you?" She looked away in the distance. "Well, it better be worth it."

"I'm not divulging anything until the deed is done," he said, containing his smile.

"Blighted teaser," she said half-bitterly.

* * *

**Deep Roads, Day 13**

"Fenkis the Brave McCuckoo-doodle-doo," Hawke said in-between panting out of laughter. They were all playing a made-up game, basically requiring each of them to invent insulting names and give onto others, then their turn would come.

"Stumpy The Uppity O'Downhere," Fenris intoned dramatically as he looked at Varric.

"Pussinboots The Conjurer McFrostitute," Varric said charmingly to Anders.

"Fabio The Manbeardog Forofor…son," Anders said in-between laughs looking at Carver.

"Ok, next round," Hawke said in an amused state. "Fenris, you start. No more Clownhawka'honka or anything that has  _clown_ in it, at least, I beg you."

"Hm," he said as he caressed his maxillary with a devious look.

"Come on, Fenris. You can't offend me… more than you have already."

"Alright, then. Priscilla Tuffpants McTrollmage," he said with a sensual grin.

"Ser Hotpockets McKittenmittens, The Wizard of Snowballs," Hawke said to Anders.

"Baldchin Pipsquick McCantreach," Anders said to Varric.

"Captain Blueberry Muffintop O'Hitmyself" Varric said to Carver.

"Oh I got one, I got one!" Hawke said chilsidhly, "Please let me, I'm exploding!"

"Fine, go ahead, Sister," Carver said as he frowned a bit.

"Ser Fluffhead The Porcupine Mister Fister," she said, gesturing dramatically.

"Oh, that was a good one," Varric said in-between panting.


	10. By Demons Be Driven

**An hour later, Deep Roads, Day 13**

"Angush Poophead McTindigger," Anders said to Varric.

"Now I understand Tindigger, but what does 'poophead' have to do with me, Blondie?" Varric asked as he crossed his arms.

"'Cause you bullshit a lot, I presume," Hawke said with a warm smile.

"Hm. Still not good enough," Varric said charmingly. "Anyway where was I?"

"You had to give Fenris a name," Hawke said as she sat beside him in camp.

"I thought we stopped with this pointless game," Fenris said bitterly, begging in his head that they would go to sleep.

"Nonsense, elf, this is how we get to know each other. And discharge all the tension, hate and other bodily feelings that are boiling up," Varric said charismatically, raising an eyebrow at the last bit. "So, where was I – ah, yes," he said as he brushed his chin, "Ser Grumpybutt McBarkalot."

"Winifred The Manwitch Whinehard," Fenris said to Anders.

"Oh, you give me a name now. Curious how you never did it before," Hawke said to Anders as he scratched his head awkwardly.

"Ah, and here I thought we'd go on with that little detail unnoticed," Anders said smiling viciously at Hawke.

"He lacks the proper parts to have the courage to offend you," Fenris smirked sarcastically.

"Oh, like you offended her truly. Clown, troll and pants references are not the way to genuinely offend a woman," Anders said decisively.

"Then, by all means, you offend her more effectively," Fenris said nonchalantly, gesturing towards Hawke.

"Don't fireball my arse, Hawke. It's still just a game, yes?" Anders said with a serious look.

"I'll hit you if you beat around the bush much longer," Hawke said impatiently.

Anders sighed, "Ugh, fine," he said and looked up around the ceilings. "Lady Charlotte the Harlot, the Red Fury of The Lantern District," Anders said grinning.

"Uh, what?! How about Crotchface McHomo of Pussytown District," Hawke said aggressively.

"See? Genuine offense," Anders said self-assured to Fenris.

"Ugh. It was supposed to have something to do with the real us, but let's continue," Hawke said bitterly and sighed. "Chuckleberry The Limbomaster McFattso," she said dramatically to Varric.

"Now I'm fat  _and_ close to earth, great," Varric said sarcastically as he laughed.

"I could have called you Footstool McCarryme, but that seemed rather cruel," Hawke said warmly.

They laughed and Varric looked at Anders with evil eyes, "Alright Blondie. You asked for it. Prettyboy Dumbley Bum McNeedledick."

"Ouch, right below the belt, literally," Anders said a bit annoyed as Fenris couldn't control his laughter and everyone was looking petrified again at the sight. "I think I'm out," he said nonchalantly as he yawned. "Lady," he saluted Hawke mischeviously.

"Arselicker," she said aggressively.

"Is that his tactful way of courting a woman?" Varric whispered to Hawke as Anders went away to sleep.

"No. More because he probably is more experienced in courting the other gender," she said sarcastically.

"Oh, cheer up, Pantaloons, I'm still rooting for you," Varric said sarcastically as she pat her on the shoulder.

"Less touching, more sleeping, Varric. We've been stuck in critical conditions for a long time, you don't want to let Bianca witness something deeply immoral, do you?" she said as she grinned.

"As much as I'm waiting like a pretty princess in the dungeon for you to jump me, Hawke, I'm standing guard this time," Varric said charmingly. She was preparing to say something, but he cut her short, "You haven't slept in days, Hawke."

"There's no Aveline here to side with you, Varric.  _I_ decide the 'patrols'," she said determinedly.

"Do I need to remind you of the No More Whining Act of 8:34 Blessed? In the mean time, consider me a volunteer," Varric said assertively and crossed his arms in sign he wasn't moving anywhere.

A distinct, deep, sometimes delightful, in this case annoying sound came about.

"Hawke," Fenris said flatly.

"Oh, you're speaking to me again? I thought you went all Ser Silenttreatment O'Mad-son after I made fun of your height," she said childishly.

He ignored her and kept a serious face, "The dwarf is right. You are not doing anyone a service by exhausting yourself."

"Hm. Should I listen to your sound advice or listen to the little voice in my head who says this is a bet you've placed with Varric on who gets to convince me first," she said narrowing her eyes at him.

"If you have numerous voices in your head – there you have it, your call to go to sleep and stop being so recalcitrant," Fenris said bitterly as he frowned and shook his head.

"Oh, is that a newly appointed pretentious word in your daily count repertoire?" Hawke deflected sarcastically.

"No. There are more. Like stubborn, difficult, uncooperative, stiff-necked," he said assaultively, drawing a colossal frown.

"Thank you for the vocabulary lesson," she said sarcastically, narrowing her eyes. "I'm beginning to think Priscilla Tuffpants was not a compliment."

"It wasn't," Fenris said flatly.

"But having voices in my head is fun," she said, grinning and getting up. She walked out of camp in silence and disappeared in the dark.

Fenris and Varric gave each other a telepathic look. If she was going crazy again, this was no time to be letting her walk alone.

 _Let her be, elf, this isn't the time to push her buttons,_ Varric's face said as he frowned.

 _No,_ Fenris said telepathically, his mere face shooting spears at Varric from his ferocious annoyance.

 _Your ears may be sharp, but your brain is seriously going for a much rectangular form,_ Varric thought sarcastically, sending annoyance back to the elf.

 _Says the dwarf with the incredibly big square head,_ Fenris muttered in his thoughts.

 _Keep that up, serah, and you can keep moping on your bloody trapped feet when I look the other way,_ Varric thought aggressively.

 _Threatening me will not change the reality of the situation,_ Fenris thought flatly.

 _You mean_ your  _reality, where every mage is reeking of demonic bloodlust and pretty unicorns and whatever else_ normal  _people see only when they're baked,_ Varric thought angrily back at Fenris.

 _It is what it is. Lie to yourself if you must,_ Fenris thought nonchalantly, his face remaining that of a statue.

 _Bah, you're going from annoyingly concerned to insufferably paranoid,_ Varric growled telepathically.

 _You will thank me later,_ Fenris replied, drawing a ghost of a determined grin.

**Dark Cavern, Deep Roads, Still Day 13**

Fenris walked among the barren dwarven hallways for what felt like an hour and there was no crazy redheaded abstinent mage warrior woman resembling Hawke in sight. He followed the walls that were beforehand marked by red-painted 'X'-s, so they wouldn't lose themselves in there. Yes, to lose oneself. An undeniable danger.

His vigilance towards the dangers of darkspawn had broken, distracted incessantly by a different, private fear. It felt like an infinity of sharp blades poking in his chest. It didn't feel like the ordinary heartbreaking terror of ghostly and silvery cries of the slaves that were not as lucky as he was, nor the grotesque voices of the depraved, demon-worshipping and relentless magisters. It was a different kind of terror.

This receptiveness hurt him. It brought back, just to distract himself, the awful memory of being shut up in a dark pit, with his neck tied to a chain, with only the screaming and the crying voices to keep him company for years and years and years. He would not remember that. Some things one would not want to remember.

Like being burned, imprisoned. No, he shut off the voices. In fact, he remembered what he stood by so firmly as he disciplined himself in those dungeons in Minrathous. If you do not learn how to single out your thoughts, if you do not block the horrid sounds, they will drive you mad. But with him now, it was simple. Or so he thought. For the cheap distraction he so adamantly chose, was just another kind of terror. A distinct, singled out, private terror.

He would not allow himself to look the other way, shut off the experienced, tired man in his soul, whom so many bad things had happened to. He would be a fool to live on the edge. Of course, he would feel guilty and stupid when he finds her chilling on a rock, contemplating the absolute, free of demonic possession or other paranoid delusions that belonged to the undercurrent of his own, private wild exaggerations.

Nonsense, of course, yet it comforted him, for lack of a better word. His pointy ear almost moved as if it belonged to a sharp mabari, for a specific, extremely inappropriate to the situation, but delightful sound started to vibrate.

Humming. Will wonders never cease. It had to be Hawke, unless darkspawn started to get deeply bored out there and decided they wanted to be mermaids.

Beside a red marked 'X' on the wall, there was an opening that he had not seen before. It must have been a specific kind of stubborn and annoying redheaded  _forcewave_ that had shattered it. He walked into the opening while controlling his breathing, following the lovely sound of the humming that just screamed in his head  _'You have gone mad. Time to count your blessings, for you are infected by the taint'._

Only it wasn't the taint. Or he really hoped it wasn't.

In the dark, with just three little blue and red shades of light from the lyrium pillars, the outline of a large crater started to form in his vision. It was indeed, a crater, filled with what appeared to be clear water. He walked past a stone formation that hid its entirety and saw a human figure in the water, adorned by the red and blue lights and leaning its back on a rock.

His throat stiffened and his cheeks, mouth and eyes all joined in a massive flinch that stripped the reason and awareness out of his brain. Yes, indeed,  _stripped._

"Fenris, what the hell," Hawke shouted in annoyance splashing water with her greatsword, as the shock robbed her of reason. It took her two more seconds to understand what was going on and rapidly covered herself with one hand.

He didn't even see anything. He only frowned from the pain of the ridiculous and the inexplicable, as his breathing stopped and he remained a silent, creepy statue, at the edge of the improvised pond, looking at her as if nothing was wrong.

"You can't stay two minutes without making sure I don't go hot-headed haywires and get lost in this pithole," Hawke continued aggressively with narrowed eyes, distracting herself from the deep, horrifying awkwardness of the situation.

"I – ", he stuttered, "Uh – ", his voice deepened and his eyes burned.

He quickly turned around chivalrously.

"I'm sorry," he said knightly. "I did not realize you would be…," he lost the word. "Cleansing yourself."

She burst into laughter, "Well that's a fancy way to put it. It did not occur to you at least once that I … well, yes, I guess I understand. Were I you, I wouldn't think by any stretch of the imagination that this was the reason I left."

He coughed chivalrously, "I will leave you be."

"Well, you already saw me," she said looking away, "Might as well have someone stand guard. I can see how this is reckless."

He laughed with his back still turned like a statue, " _Now_ you see?"

"Yes, yes, laugh at me," she said aggressively.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I did not see anything."

"No?" she said bewilderedly as she looked down at her covering hands. "Well, good."

"So… you created this?" he asked awkwardly, looking at the wall in the distance.

She smirked and went back neck-deep in the water, "What's it to you?"

"I -," he stuttered, "am merely curious how you achieved such a convenient… facility, in here."

She laughed softly, "Ice it up nicely then melt with fire. Horribly simple, if you ask me," she said flatly.

"I see," he said firmly, rolling his eyes around the room and keeping his sculpture-like position with his back turned to the water-filled crater.

"Well… you can go, if you want to, I mean," she said awkwardly, "I do not need protection."

He hesitated, followed by a short smile, "You seem to be a champion at protecting others, as well as putting  _yourself_ in danger."

"Oh, is it a thing already?" Hawke asked amused.

"It has been horribly frequent," Fenris said flatly.

"Then by all means, stand there like a petrified ghost," she said sarcastically.

"And what would you have me do?" he asked aggressively. "Turn around and play word games with you to pass the time?"

"I suppose playing  _I spy with my little eye_  would not be a rich choice of a game to pass the time with," she said smirking.

"It wouldn't," he said firmly, trying to contain an amused smile, even with his back turned.

"Well, this isn't fair. You meddle in my private affairs and I'm the only one to feel awkward and self-conscious?" she said assertively.

"Believe me, you are not alone in this," Fenris said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and tensing up even more.

"It is still not proper," she said courteously.

He hesitated and frowned, "None of this is proper," he said firmly.

"Just come in the water and  _keep_ your distance. I think that would be fair enough, don't you?" she said as she drew a colossal grin.

"And when the darkspawn come, we'll just salute them warmly and ask them to join in, too," he said sarcastically, feeling a rush boiling up in all his insides.

"Well, you can stand up from the water, whip it out and pray they'll be intimidated and go away," she said laughing.

"Preposterous," he said aggressively in a hoarse tone.

She sighed, "Do I have to get out and drag you in myself?" she said assertively.

"No," he said quickly and frowned. He hesitated, as his brain was on vacation somewhere in a faraway land and the tension grew horribly sharp. He sighed, "Just, don't look."

She smiled and gave away a short laugh, "Believe me, I don't want to be appalled by some terrifying sight. My curiosity ends at the wonder if those shoulder pads were just build around genuine spikes of skin. " She sunk neck-deep again in the water and put her hands over her eyes. "I'm utterly blind now, proceed."

Fenris sighed and remained immobilized. He looked down and closed his eyes. This was inappropriate, dangerous,  _ridiculous._ He should have cursed in Tevinter when he had the chance and proceed to leave her in that pithole to be eaten by the darkspawn. For some reason, her voice was commanding and abrupt, not like a magister, though. Logical in its intent, but all while giving him a sense of security, which the little stupid, inexperienced, free man in his soul bit like a naïve gazelle wondered after the dance of the leopard's beautifully textured tail. He remained with the comfort of swearing inside his mind and forcefully took a grip on his chest plate.

He took it off angrily, as if it was some malignant, bitch of life and undid the ties of his shirt. He cursed in his head during the whole process and swallowed heavily, leaving the other voices to cry and scream in a deaf spot in his mind. They just became a spark of irritating noise.

He flinched at the sound of her voice, which said, "Are you done yet? My face is getting numb."

"Almost," he muttered angrily and stepped in the cold water. It was a miracle of life, the touch of freshly created water, all hidden away in a gigantic dark shithole of an abandoned thaig that reeked of death and despair. "You can open your eyes now," he said, as he was neck-deep in the water in the opposite end of the pond from her.

She uncovered her face and started to laugh. "You look like a giant grumpy water lily floating about and waiting to burst into tiny little grumpy petals."

"I am so pleased to be the object of your amusement," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"At least you're getting a bath, don't you know manners?" she said sarcastically.

"T-h-a-n-k y-o-u," he said sarcastically, accentuating every syllable.

Being so angry and tensed, he forgot to look away and appear unaffected, so he just looked at her in awe. The dark water didn't give away any form or complexion beneath, but only now did he notice her red hair was undone and beautifully adorning her face, covering her shoulders, so she didn't have to sit neck-deep to cover herself, but rather just at shoulder-length. She looked at him grinning to no end and placed an arm to rest horizontally on a rock next to her.

"Oh, go on, I know you want to," she said warmly.

Fenris paused and raised an eyebrow, "What do I want?"

"The water is not see-through from all this dust and dirt."

She read his mind. He was just thinking how much he wanted to stick his head in the water for a few seconds and feel the cold. He frowned at her and sank in the water until she couldn't see him anymore. When his head emerged again, his face drew the picture of relief and freedom, a small private joy amid the tiring and jaded feeling of his dehydrated body, the whole inconvenience and critical state of their trip.

"Feeling better now?" she asked sarcastically.

"This is no place to be overwhelmed by some ridiculous abundance of joy," he muttered angrily.

"Don't you have anything positive to say?" she asked in contained outrage, raising an eyebrow.

"The… water is nice?" he said nonchalantly, looking around.

"That's … something," she said awkwardly and smiled. "Good start."

"No. I am finished," he said firmly. "There is nothing else positive to say about this."

"Humor me," she said angrily, rolling her eyes at him. She stuck her head in the water, then came back out splashing water from left to right, her hair flying up and landing on her pale, strong shoulders again. They were strong, no doubt, but they appeared fragile and, he now noticed, bruised.

Fenris swallowed heavily and looked away. Of all the insane, ridiculous, fully unreasonable things they've done in Deep Roads, this was the ultimate crazy. He thanked the existing or invented gods again, that Varric was not there to witness it and tell the breaking, earth-shattering and extremely embellished story when they got back to Kirkwall.

But the cold, soft water was comforting and life-giving, it soothed his skin that was almost always in pain. He felt like he was being healed again, only by a mending, natural substance now.

Fenris emerged from the water at chest length and rested his back against the rocks.

"I know you'll probably curse at me and get out, but how far do those markings go?" she asked in amusement.

"Wouldn't you like to know," he said sarcastically, giving away a sensual tigerish grin.

"And spoil the fun? Yes, yes, caught in a trap of my own doing," she said and laughed. "Well, I won again."

"Again?" he asked bewilderedly and raised an eyebrow, as he rested an arm back up on the edge.

"It's the second time I got you to take off that armour," she said as she grinned.

"Yes, evidently so. And to take a bath, too. I am a horrible liar," he said sarcastically, keeping his aura of nonchalance despite the tension in all his body.

"Of all my friends, I'd say you're the most honest," she said firmly.

He hesitated , with a contained lift to his eyebrows. "Friend?"

"Sorry. Companion. I wouldn't want you to feel like I'm such a colossal intrusion and impropriety," she said sarcastically.

He laughed very softly, "What would call this then? An awfully polite way of keeping our distance?"

She looked to her right, then her left quickly, and nodded. "Good point."

"I thought so," Fenris said in amusement. "Friend," he finished and nodded towards her with a dark, profound gaze and an intrusive grin.

"I can feel the genuineness in that last bit," Hawke smirked. "It reeks of honesty. I'm feeling so close to you right now," she said sarcastically.

"Then come closer, if you feel I'm so far away," he said nonchalantly. She stopped her breathing and wondered if it was poorly clarified sarcasm, for he seemed very firm in his statement.

"I feel a 'but' coming," she said flatly.

"There is none," he said firmly in a deep voice, eyeing her differently than his usual angry look.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him in confusion. What was he doing? Sure, they had been stuck in this hellhole for a long time and basic needs were awfully poked at with a stick, but how was this sane? And how was he suddenly so firm and intent on becoming  _closer_ with someone, when for months all he did was bark incessantly and telling everyone to keep their distance.

The voice in her had had broken, as she felt a sudden rush in her everywhere and she felt trapped in a body animating in the water towards Fenris. He watched her insistently with his penetrating, curious green eyes as she approached him. "What do you want exactly?" she said narrowing her eyes and stopping a quarter away from the original distance between them.

He wasn't breathing hoarsely, wasn't swallowing heavily, nothing. Her permissions meant nothing to him, neither did her suspicions. Her commanding power was but another degree of what we all possessed, which didn't made the struggle simple, but it did make him want to take her.

"I'm not divulging anything at a distance," he said firmly and continued to stare at her with dilated pupils and a sensual grin.

Her legs moved without her, succumbing herself at their command. She approached him slowly in the water as his grin became wider and wider through his wet hair. He removed his arm from behind where it was resting on the edge of the pond and he went deeper in the water to get closer to her. He locked his gaze in her colour-changing, now green eyes and they widened suddenly, as if a colossal shock had unsettled them into deep anguish.

"Desire demon!" she half-shouted in terror and a gigantic water barrier splashed in his face.  
Fenris jumped out and grabbed his sword, as a purple bare desire demon came out of the water.

"You little spoilsport. I should have gone into you when you were alone and defenceless," the demon said looking for Hawke in the water.

She swam back to the rocks underwater and grabbed whatever cloth she could and her greatsword, then emerged from the water and started unsettling it with a forcewave.

"Oh, play with me," the desire demon whispered, "I like games."

Hawke ducked down from the demon's attempted grip and tried to slash it, but the demon grabbed it in its hands and said, "Oops." Hawke growled in annoyance, as the demon pushed the sword towards her and tried to grab her by the throat.

A sharp, hoarse cut went right through the demon's chest, then Fenris took it out forcefully. The demon screamed and cried and Hawke took the chance to dismember it, but the creature faked it and for him now.

"Get back!" Hawke screamed at Fenris as she tried to push the demon aside, that was now using the water to form a tornado around them.

Fenris turned on his glow with a dark, annoyed look and grabbed Hawke's hand forcefully and put it inside the demon's chest. "Do it," he screamed.

Hawke flinched, but quickly felt her hand solidify along with his inside the demon and she channelled a massive wave inside it. The demon coughed and shouted, but it quickly shattered into a thousand pieces and dissipated into the air.

"Shit," Hawke said as she panted in terror. "That was-," she tried to say in-between panting, "Awesome," she finished muttering to Fenris, who was now looking extremely ferocious and angry, ready to burst. He let her hand go forcefully, as if she were nothing, "Get dressed," he said firmly and turned his back to get out of the water.

She went for her armour and put it back over the long blouse she put on before, as her body trembled recalling the ridiculous event that they just went through. Stupid blighted desire demon, praying on their basic needs and mesmerizing them. It tried to lure them into letting their guard down so it could possess them.

"It is done," he said flatly as he finished equipping himself. She turned around and approached him with a firm look.

"I'm sorry, I -," she started awkwardly.

"No," he said firmly and looked away in confusion. "I apologize. I should not have let myself fooled by that monster's illusions. I… initiated it," he said firmly, looking down.

"It wasn't exactly an illusion. More like the demon animated us both like puppets," she said assertively and put her sword in its back holder.

"Whatever it did, I had failed to see it," he said aggressively, hiding his eyes through his hair.

"This was my fault just as much. I'm a mage and I didn't sense jack shit," she said commandingly, taking a step closer to him.

He coughed and cleared his throat awkwardly, "Yes, well, be more vigilant next time."

"There won't any more next times in this hellhole. We're getting out of it  _today_ ," she said aggressively as she started to walk towards the opening. She stopped with him behind her and said, "I assume it is clear that we won't tell anyone what just happened here," she said firmly.

" _Crystal_  clear," Fenris said flatly and proceeded to walk with her back to camp.

* * *

 

**Back to camp**

"Shit, you both look like you just saw a ghost," Varric said bewilderedly as they came back, both pale and silent.

"Kinda…sorta," Hawke said awkwardly and went straight to sleep.

"Well, here's your 50 silvers. Did you scare her with your magical fisting into accepting to sleep?" Varric said as he looked for the coin in his jacket.

"Something like that," Fenris said flatly and took the coin. He took a seat near the firepit and remained silent.

"So, I'm sensing you don't feel like playing the name game anymore," Varric said awkwardly as he scratched his head.

"You're sensing correctly," Fenris said as he continued to tremble. Varric noticed, but decided not to assault him with direct questions.

"So… that thing you do with your hand. I bet that makes pickpocketing easier."

"This is the fifth time you've asked me," Fenris said aggressively and started to frown.

"Right," Varric said sharply. "Sorry."

"Just whip out your cards," Fenris said flatly.

"What?" Varric asked raising an eyebrow.

"I know you brought cards," Fenris said firmly, without looking at him.

"Hm. Right away, serah," Varric said awkwardly and felt scared at the elf's sharp and direct, yet evasive behaviour. Something happened back there and he was going to find out. Sooner or later.

* * *

 

**Deep Roads, Day 16**

"Well, we're back where we started," Varric said as they approached the red-marked walls.

"Got any other great ideas?" Hawke asked as she shrugged and looked around.

"Scream our lungs out hoping the Hero of Ferelden might be venturing in here on vacation or something?" Varric said sarcastically.

"If that's her choice of vacation, I don't want her rescuing us at all," Hawke replied in annoyance.

"Cheer, up, Pantaloons, -" he started but paused. "Well, I've got nothing. I am officially out of comforting and glass half-full lines."

"Then we are all lost," she said with a sad face, almost appearing like she meant it.

"Think we can… take a break?" Carver said in a hoarse voice behind her.

Hawke felt annoyed and hesitated to talk to him again, but she rolled her eyes and said, "Sure. We can set camp, but just for a break."

She proceeded to walk forward but a sudden harsh sound like a body falling presented itself and she turned back and saw Carver on the ground.

"Carver!" she screamed in terror. She knew it. It wasn't his stubborn pride that made him so silent the past few days, it was something wrong with him that he couldn't admit to because everybody else was fine.

"It's the blight, I can sense it," Anders said as he approached them with a haunted face.

"I'll be just like that Templar, Wesley, I'll be just as dead. Just as gone," he said panting and staring blankly as if he saw his life flashing before his eyes.

"You're not dying on me, Carver," Hawke said aggressively as she held him.

"There might be something we can do. I stole those maps from Grey Wardens who were going to venture in this area. If they are here, they can help him," Anders said firmly.

She struck a colossal frown, got up and pushed Anders against the wall as she held him by the collar of his robe. "And you're telling us  _now_?"

Anders coughed and raised his arms in sign of peace, "I didn't want them to follow me and you just wanted the maps."

Hawke pushed him against the wall again aggressively with fire in her eyes, "Not only that, you bastard. Were you too busy looking for mushrooms that you couldn't sense the taint in him?" she screamed with a homicidal look.

"I swear to you – I didn't sense it. When the taint is received, it lies dormant within the body until it gathers enough energy to spread a massive infection everywhere."

"Sister," Carver said in a warm, but husky and sick voice as he was held by Fenris and Varric. "I'm not going to make it."

"Yes you are. We're going to find those Wardens if it kills me," Hawke said in a determined, driven voice. "Start walking!" she shouted at Anders and he flinched in a defensive position.

"No," Carver said pleading. "Leave us a moment," he said looking at the others. They all nodded while trying to mask the terror in their eyes and walked away down the stairs.

"Listen to me, Carver," Hawke started fiercely, "You're not going to die here."

"Sister," he said warmly. "Please, do it."

"No!" she shouted and frowned into a sorrowful, pleading face. "I can't," she said as she felt a battalion of burning tears starting to come out of her eyes.

"It's not your fault," he said. "It never was."

"I don't care where the finger has been pointed at," Hawke said in frustration. "You're my brother. Nothing is going to happen to you unless I allow it. And I'm bloody not going to."

"I understand, Sister," he said warmly and coughed. "I always understood."

"I know you did. I did, too, Carver. I swear it. I was just bloody stubborn."

He gave a small, husky laugh, "Of course, we both were. We wouldn't be Hawkes otherwise."

She laughed, "Ser Tobias Blackheart, iron will and heart of steel," she said smiling, but stubbornly refusing to let the tears come out.

"And Ser Luna Rosebud, hair of roses and heart of gold. A flaming menace against all evil. " he said looking with warm eyes and brushing the hair out of her face.

"Evil can suck it," she said firmly and smiled.

"I'm sorry, for what it's worth. That I couldn't be a better brother to you."

"We're both guilty at that. But don't lose hope now just because you feel a little dizzy. I mean," she looked down, "Please, Carver, I can't lose you. You have to trust me."

"I trust you, Sister," he said in a hoarse voice. "But I don't think I trust myself to hold on."

"Well, we can't sit on our asses and argue about that now," she said aggressively.

"No, we can't. I'd rather spend the time left saying how much I love you," he said decisively.

"You'll have plenty of time to take that statement back," she said firmly.

"Sister-"

"No, Carver. We've come this far. You escaped danger so many times in here, what's one more time tricking death?"

He laughed, "Alright. I trust you."

"Good."

* * *

 

**Deep Roads, Day 18**

"If you don't take him, I'm going to kill you," Hawke shouted at Stroud with burning eyes.

"Threatening me will not get you the result you're looking for," Stroud said flatly to Hawke.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my manners. Hello, good morning, good evening, such a marvellous coincidence that we ran into each other, pleasure to have your acquaintance –  _now take him_ ," she said firmly.

"I know it may come as a shock to you, but we do not recruit Grey Wardens out of pity," Stroud retorted her sarcasm.

"He's an excellent warrior. We've been here for almost a month and he's had no problems kicking darkspawn arse. You'd be an idiot not to take him with no Blight coming and no recruits jumping and panting eager to sign up."

"This is as much a sentence as the taint itself, you know this Anders," Stroud said firmly, but flinching at how he contradicted himself.

"He'll die anyway, I'm asking you," Anders pleaded with logic and what seemed as a telepathic agreement between the two.

"If the boy comes, he comes now and you may never see him again. Being a Grey Warden is a calling, not a charity," Stroud said firmly as he faced Hawke.

"Thank you," Hawke said inhaling again after so long and looked at Carver.

"Well, I get this it. Should have trusted you all along to find a way," Carver said to her grinning.

"You know me, I never accept 'no' for an answer," she said as she smiled, masking the burning terror in her soul.

"Take care of Mother," Carver said in pain and Hawke could have sworn a tear was coming out of his eye.

"Carver," she said flatly, as Stroud took him under his grip. "Be safe. Promise me you will."

"I promise," he said nodding in a knightly salute.

As they took him away and were swallowed by the grand darkness of the cavers, she bend her head down slowly as if the shock robbed her of any expression, remaining unperturbed.

"Hawke," Varric said approaching her.

"Not today," Hawke said flatly, raising her palm at him. She proceeded to walk forward, in the direction Stroud had told them was the safest way out.

* * *

 

**3 days later, Village in the Vimmark Mountains, 28 days since their departure from Kirkwall**

The voices stopped and Carver's face accusing her in the field that one day life will come back to bite her dissipated into the terror of his dying body in her arms. Then his disappearing in the dark with the Wardens.

Hawke had always believed herself to be a hard and intuitive personality. Not necessarily smart or cunning, nor wise. Simply seeing the larger scheme of things and resisting under immediate pressure, foreseeing the many outcomes of the situation and making decisions based on heavy facts. She had fought both dangerous mages and demons, gigantic warriors and very flexible rogues by mastering the battlefield with her stratagems, orientation skills, on-the-spot made-up strategies and so on. But nothing had prepared her for what happened right in front of her eyes, not even her her father and sister's death couldn't have trained her into ... well, resisting the horror of a sudden death, swallowing the event, accepting the fact that despite what could have happened, she managed to save him. She couldn't even allow herself to accept that just a few days before this, she had told him he was dead to her. Beneath her rock-hard posture, her legs were crumbling to the ground.

She had nothing to retort, nothing to say. All her struggles, the fallacies, the horrors, the excuses, none of them mattered and all of them were to blame. All of them. The life she led was full of such idiocies, hiding behind the security of time. Had she had the ability to change time, she would have done everything differently. She would have gone straight to the templars as child and pleaded to be taken into their custody, take her to the Circle and be done with it. But she grew up under her father's wing and she learned how to master her powers, keep them hidden and while they seemed very fascinating and had an aura of a grand mystique, she lost interested before it had even begun. Still, she was her father's daughter. And that meant two things: that she was not giving up, whatever the cost and also, she couldn't afford to... she was held in, trapped under the moral command of protecting her family. Kirkwall, Lowtown, the estate, the expedition, they meant nothing to her. They held value and meaning for somebody else, which irrevocably radiated into meaning something to her, indirectly, but that was it.

She wondered if she blamed this for the fact that she couldn't allow herself private joys, except for doing what she thought was right in the different jobs she had taken. She wondered if, by any chance, she was full of it. If she were indeed just greedy, lustful and selfish and she had been repressing it out of guilt because of the nature of this reality itself. She was iron-willed and bull-headed as far her principles went, but they were probably a joke, too. She allowed herself to go past them when it was necessary and didn't involve danger. The few times she used magic, in the past months, she only used it because it was proper magic that saved or helped somebody, nothing more. But maybe she grew comfortable in exercising this right and she kept using it just to humor herself.

And just as well, the moment she starts using magic again, Carver almost dies. Bethany was the loving force of nature that she swore to protect at all costs, but Carver was her rock. Stupid, stubborn, show-off Carver, but he was still her rock and without him, the throne of her reason, will and sanity went straight to the garbage can.

She felt suffocated and bathed in filth. Her body was boiling, exhausted, but she kept pacing backwards and forwards, waiting for Varric and Anders to exchange a pouch of worthless jewellery for a caravan ride back to Kirkwall. As they put it, they were all suffering from a curious condition whose name she had forgotten, which implied temporary insanity, fatigue and depression, like soldiers were after the war. But what hurt her above all things was the great suffocating sense of the beginning of the end, the true beginning. The false beginning was her father's death, but no, this was the real bitch of life.

Bitterness and grief was something shallow compared to her present state of mind. Into the womb of the earth she would have crawled, if she had the strength for it. Blessed ignorance, how she wanted it.

The night was cold and harsh, unwelcoming, just as the village they were waiting about their skirts in. The rain was pouring softly, for the first time in… a very long time, she had felt the rain, and did not feel anything about it.

"Thank the gods," Fenris said, "that you did not." She didn't remember what he said before that. Something about Carver's sudden death and her hypothetical one, yes. For days he had kept silent and stuttering to the point of absolute annoyance, but the first moment they remained alone, since the horrifyingly ridiculous bath event, he managed to get the words out like a child finally getting the courage to recite the overly rehearsed apology to his parents for some stunt he had pulled.

"And why?" Hawke demanded. "Tell me, why?" she said looking at him determined.

Fenris shuddered. He was very close to saying the wrong words and he felt her hand preparing to form a burning fist.

"You are asking the wrong person the wrong question... and for the wrong reason," he stated firmly, almost wanting to hit himself.

Her homicidal eyes flinched and narrowed, but with sadness and deep realization, rather than with anger and in protest. She shoved the words out with all the rancor of an accusation, "I suppose it is done, either way. And I'm here," she said bitterly, closing her eyes and letting the water replace the tears she never allowed to come out.

Fenris lifted his eyebrows bitterly and remained a statue, thinking of what he could do at this point. He was a man and a former slave, he had no experience with consoling or comforting. In turn, he would know how to fix problems, how to do. But even so, he was utterly and profoundly clueless. Just as well, he couldn't allow himself to poke at her and make the situation even worse by asking of her to tell him what to do. Varric was the only one who always knew what to say, but in this situation, he needn't have said anything. Hawke just felt him and she calmed herself in his presence. Anders remained quiet because he knew that if he said something Hawke would punch him square in the jaw. Not he would mind to see such a thing. He, however, was neither a man of words nor of silence, apparently, for he felt being quiet was impolite and cowardly. He had to do something, but didn't know what.

He felt like a fool, but couldn't get his eyes off of her crumbling face. Her pale face, tortured and absent of color, stripped of it and letting off only a ghost of the radiance of her once flexible and rich expression. And her eyes... her eyes were not really her eyes.

He went straight for the only thing that had proven itself to be an effective ... poor remedy. He grabbed the sack of water from his pack and approached her again with a dark, contained look masked by his hair that was dripping of water continuously. And why did that make her so angry, she wondered. She was still pacing backwards and forwards, but as he got close, she turned sharply to him; she wanted to strike him, push him away. What he saw stopped him. She wasn't even looking at him, really and her expression was so distant, so soul weary that he felt his own exhaustion all the more heavily. She was looking at a ghost from her past, maybe her own ghost, and refraining stoically from killing it.

For some insane, brain-empty reason, he wanted to scream. The well-being of Hawke had always seemed crucial to his own survival, but nothing more than that one simple reason, yet now he found himself at a loss for explaining his strange behaviour. He recalled the last month in her company. He did not need to be near her - better that he was not near her - but he had to know that she was somewhere, and continuing, and that they might meet again, regardless of the mocking and barking and their endless while intelligent, extremely frustrating debates. What he saw now in her filled him with something similar. If he felt bitterness now, then Hawke felt despair.

"I have to thank you," she said abruptly, coming out of the horrifying, possessed with fear state. "You took care of him, where I had not... You pushed him out of the way before those wraiths got to him, you dragged him to safety when that monster first burst its forcewave. You sharpened his sword where he was too stubborn do it, kept guard instead of him because he wanted to sleep so much. You, -" she said as her voice trembled strongly. "Thank you."

He died inside while hearing those words. He didn't do much and it was not a risk for his own death, while she did so much more for him in turn, even as he restlessly barked and second-guessed every decision she made. He started off by stubbornly refusing to trust her and now he owed her his life for at least five rescues. Thanking him? It was a better line that he could have ever expected to come out of her at that moment. It was not impossible to like her. On the other hand, it was merely the beginning. And her thanks - it wasn't the whole truth.

"If you weren't there, my brother would be dead," she continued firmly in the rain. "If I hadn't gone in the Alienage -"

"Stop, Hawke," he whispered bitterly. Her words raised a barrier in him. "You do not owe me anything. I needed you more than you will ever need me. Whatever I did, somebody else could have easily done it," he said, as the rain poured nonchalantly, remembering the terrors she went through because of what became of him next. "It's not a matter of fate-" he said, but stopped as he saw her assume an assaultive, angry posture. She struck a colossal frown and he felt her forming her fists. "That's the truth, eh? This is just a matter of practicality and inequality?"

"No, I-," he said and hesitated. His choice of words was extremely bad. The rain didn't seem to care.

"What is the whole truth?" she asked angrily. "That I owed you nothing, not my help, least of all the knowledge of my existence and that you are impertinent to suggest that you are actually just paying some non-existent debt to me and that's all? That I am some fortunate miracle of life, that it was the ultimate luck that I made myself known to you and helped you and this is all just a big fat coincidence and you don't actually deserve any of it. And to add a cherry on top of the pile of bullshit, my taking care of you is so much more considerable than you doing ultimately the same thing?" she shouted.

"No, Hawke. If it had started that way, it's not a matter to consider and accuse me of now. It doesn't matter any longer, because I  _chose_ to come with you,  _I_ chose to plunge that sword into the dragon's throat even if it meant the death of me and  _I_  chose to stay with you even now," he said angrily while pointing at her.

"Finally exercising the right to be free?" Hawke shouted defensively. The burst of outrage and the accusation was an irrational defence, just as his. "Welcome to a world I don't even know, myself," she said as she stretched his arms sarcastically to him. "I'm a stranger in a stranger land, good to have you there with me," she said sharply, "voluntarily."

"Perhaps so," he said quietly, looking firmly into her eyes. He couldn't help smiling. She was right. And he liked the manner, the bone-hard way in which she spoke.

It had not been in his experience that a human, least of all a mage, to be irrevocably stamped by the graces of what was good and what was right, while still - he had to admit – recognizing the dangers that could become of her. She was see-through sometimes and she ached from the curse she had to live with and he saw her face every time she cast a spell, her despising it. All while still welcoming him to bark and accuse, obviously turning the blade into an already open wound. And still listening to him and taking him seriously. And so it was true, also, of even this stupid, stubborn mage, whose complex words had a savage simplicity, remained honest and welcomed him - even with a soft timbre in her voice now, despite the boiling rage and the suffering she had felt a minute ago.

"I haven't survived all this as well as I should have survived it," she said bitterly while looking down, coming back to her fear-possessed state.

" _Si trans infernum ambulas, age quod agis._ If you are going through hell, keep going," he said knightly, tangling his hands behind is back.

"Is that the literal translation from the Chant of Insufferable Magisters?" she asked sarcastically.

"No," he ignored her sarcasm. "And the literal translation would be, if you are going through hell, drive because you are driven."

"Oh, well, I suck at it. Drove a carriage full of explosives in a tree once. You do not want to know how that story ends," she said sarcastically, crossing her arms and looking away.

"Luckily for you, there's a - to use your words - barking mad elven cockatoo that is volunteering to keep you out of danger as you  _walk_ through hell," he said firmly, refusing to contain his smile any longer. If he made fun of himself, maybe he could distract her.

"I can walk unaided, thank you," she said with her characteristic defensive meanness as she crossed her arms.

Her face revealed a tracery of subtle, extreme vulnerability for an instant, the glimpse of someone who once had been tortured, malnourished, beaten and that kept resisting. Maybe there was more to her than she allowed everyone to see. The closer you think you are, the less you actually see. Despite making use of that stratagem, she remained an honest soul, and he could not help but respect that.

"For what it's worth – it has been my pleasure to at least try," he said courteously and nodded towards her. Those words had a double meaning, in start pertaining to saving her and Carver, but the other one he had not known exactly himself, either.

"Hmph," she said sharply, understanding his first meaning. "Never has life seemed so senseless before this, right?" she asked sarcastically, smirking to what seemed as a private joke inside her.

"Yes. Never has life itself seemed so senseless before," he said half-sarcastically and nonchalantly, looking in the distance at the, as luck would have it, half-moon.

"I'm not myself," she said looking down. "Life has sense, but I'm the one who's not making any," she said smiling bitterly, "But I don't understand my present view of things. I don't know."

He thought again of his imprisonment, the chains hurting him, the pain shooting through his limbs. Many a time he had heard slaves and even some magister guests of Danarius say with a guilty conscience "Life is not worth it," and he had never disagreed. Never fathomed to think otherwise; well, now he understood why.

As if in a trance, he saw her turn to lead the way to the shop in which Varric and Anders were taking so long. She lost the thing that kept her hair up in a tail and she refused to use the red material wrapped around the pommel of her greatsword. He thought she was being impractical. But now, in the cold of night and in the – finally – fresh air, it fell to her ribs, a great mass of red. And he felt the urge to touch it, see if it was so soft as it looked. How positively remarkable that he could be distracted  _now_ by something like that, something impersonal, and that it could make him feel all right, as if nothing had happened; as if the world were good.

He rather liked that clown hair; ah, the idiot brain again, he thought, that he could like something at such a time. Perhaps it was merely the exhaustion, the hunger and the sleep-depravation that made him feel all this idiocy.

She stopped in the doorway with him following her behind, as if she remembered something all of a sudden. "Before I forget, I believe you owe me a bottle of that wine of yours for that pitiable loss at Diamondback."

He drew a soft, contained laugh, "Consider it the prize for getting me out of that forsaken pit."

"Nonsense. I'm holding you for that mysterious prize. You can't go back on your word now," she said firmly.

"You are a terrible bluff caller and yet you still win at Diamondback. Will wonders never cease," he said flatly, shaking his head.

"So, you're a little charlatan, then? Manipulating me like that, making false promises to poor naïve girls," she said sarcastically, in a soft voice.

"Me?" he smirked, "Never."

"I'm failing to believe anything you say any longer," she said as she smiled and turned her back to him and went in the shop.

"Well, we can't have that now, can we?" he said quietly, containing his smile.

* * *

 

**Sunset, Inside the horse-driven caravan, Somewhere in the Vimmark Mountains**

"Mother of all bullshit, are we in some kind of race for who dies more quickly?" Varric asked in annoyance, as the caravan was hopping and shaking through the mountain paths and pebbles and they kept jumping from the bench.

"I could swear you are the one driving this caravan," Fenris said flatly, holding onto the bench.

"Oh, this is marvellous," Hawke said, drawing a ghost of a smile for the first time in days. "I feel like I'm in Ferelden again."

"Yes, it feels horribly similar," Anders said as his body hopped along with the caravan.

"Oh, come on, don't you miss it?" Hawke said warmly. "The wild evergreen forests, the brown, the cold, the hoppity horses!"

"Sadly, I didn't get to see much of it, since I was busy being imprisoned in the Circle and all," Anders said a bit angrily, but smiled at the sight of an entertained Hawke.

"You had enough time the seven times you escaped. Don't tell me you just wondered the taverns for a quickie in the limber box," Hawke said frowning.

"No -, well, not in the limber box," Anders said in amusement. "I've got much better secret places to do that."

"Well, you must show me sometime. My curiosity is getting the better of me," she said sarcastically.

"Oh, well, a beautiful woman and a dark alley, how can I refuse that," Anders said grinning.

 _Please let me hit him,_ Fenris thought as he recalled just how many times Hawke was about to but didn't get the chance. His sudden fascination and endless flattery towards her annoyed Fenris. Not for the obvious reason – the obvious reason would have been too obvious, but it was not, so this wasn't the case - but because Anders seemed a snake in all its glory and it was sickening to watch two people doing something remotely similar to getting along, when they seemed like the most different people, whose one common trait was perhaps the impending, but pointless fact that they were mages.

"Remember that song at least? With the horses?" she said childishly.

"Oh, how can I forget! Keep on galloping my black horse!" he said eagerly, becoming nostalgic.

"Well, don't just stand there and look pretty, sing with me!"

And thus began the strangest but fairly entertaining five minutes of Varric and Fenris's lives in that caravan, as Hawke and Anders sang in awfully different pitches the song of their barbaric ancestors all while the caravan stubbornly hopped and moved with great speed through the woods as if it were driven by the fierce cheetas of the Seheron jungles.  _Keep on galloping my black horse, carrying me to unknown shores! Through these outlandish woods and with confidence back home!_

"Hawke's singing. Check the skies for flying pigs," Varric said sarcastically, masking his surprise.

A few hours later, or maybe the whole night later, they all but Hawke succumbed into deep sleep. Varric somehow landed with his head in Anders's lap and he looked so peaceful, sleeping like a baby. Anders was snoring and seemed terribly unaffected by the foreign object lying in his lap. Fenris was the most stubborn of them all and refused to sleep. He kept her company almost all night and she had no choice but to indulge his curiosity about the beauties of her mother country, the songs and the history, the great stratagems of King Calenhad she fiercely believed in and the smell of green everywhere, even in winter. He listened to her carefully and imagined it all, for the way she described everything with so much warmth and passion, he felt as if he were there himself, seeing, hearing and smelling it all. But his fatigue got the better of him eventually and he succumbed himself into the deep soft slumber we all needed at some point, as she hummed a song of her ancestors.

At one point, she started to get very bored and adorned Varric's sleeping face with all the weeds she knew were just too much – even for Anders – all while not feeling a thing. She tried not to laugh and wake them up, distracting herself excellently with her work.

As the sun broke free from the chains of the horizon, her eyes started to feel heavy and she landed straight onto Fenris's very sharp – now she felt - shoulder pad. She contained herself from going _Motherffff-_ , but he woke up instinctively and saw the scratches it made on her cheek and she drew a big fat awkward fake smile. He did not say a thing, just pressed his lips bitterly, shook his head at her and smirked. He undid the strap, removing the one shoulder pad and went back to sleep.

* * *

 

**5 days later, Sunrise, Kirkwall City Gates, 33 days since their departure**

"Well, home sweet home," Varric said charmingly, getting out of the caravan and looking at the much more welcoming city than the blighted hole they lived in for a month. Kirkwall suddenly looked beautiful.

"I can't even imagine how many patients I've neglected," Anders said putting a hand to his forehead and started counting. "Oh, Maker."

"You won't see one dime from this treasure until my head meets a real sodding pillow first," Varric said as he grabbed his stiff neck.

"Reasonable choice," Fenris said flatly as he grabbed his stiff neck himself . He moved it sideways and it cracked, making Varric flip at the sound.

"Mother of sweet cheeses, you need a real bed more than I do," Varric said in amazement.

"This is nothing alarming," Fenris said nonchalantly. "I have lived through worse."

"Right, I keep forgetting you're a creepy former slave from Tevinter that fists people's hearts out if they have even the sheer impertinence of looking at you," Varric said and raised his hands. "Mister Fister," he said mischievously and Fenris frowned at him, but was too tired to pick a fight.

They flinched at the sight of Hawke jumping forcefully out of nowhere from the caravan with a refreshed look.

"Priscilla Tuffpants, fancy meeting you here," Varric said in amusement.

"Uh, pleasure to run into you, Chuckleberry Limbomaster," she said warmly and stopped as if she remembered something. "McFattso," she finished sharply pointing at him.

"For what it's worth Hawke, I'm sorry for what happened with your brother. Rest assured, if I ever find Bartrand, you'll definitely get a piece of him to smash instead of a soulless table.  _And_  he's not reimbursable for damages."

"Thank you, Varric," she said warmly. "You always know just what to say," she said, looking rather unaffected.

"I assume you'll be going straight home to tell your family about -," Varric said, but paused as Hawke turned to him with an unusual look, maybe homicidal, maybe haunted, maybe just hungry.

"No," she said abruptly. "I need to… pull myself together first. If I go in this state and I see my mother cry, I-", she said all while trying to remain unperturbed like a true soldier. "Just," she said, pressing her eyes, "no."

"No need to say another word, Hawke," Varric said warmly in a low tone. "You can take my gigantic bed today, I'll get another room."

Fenris hesistated, but took a step closer to them. "I have three beds. I mean, two vacant, free bedrooms."

"Hm," Hawke said in amusement. "What say you, Anders, have you got anything to beat that offer?"

Anders laughed, "I sleep in an improvised bed and while still terribly… comfy, it's still just the one."

"Mansion trumps tavern trumps shady clinic," she said in amusement. "You win," she said as she looked at Fenris.

"Well, since I won't see you anytime soon," Varric started in a bit of annoyance, "Quick business discussion in the middle of nowhere : if my time telling is correct, Satinalia's coming in a few days, which means the bazars are already opening and that's our perfect shot for selling all this stuff. Wow, it's winter already, shit. It's been what? Five months since I wai-  _ran_ into you in Hightown. Or is that six?"

"I don't know, but it really is a reason for celebration. We're gonna get so drunk… and it's Satinalia, too. Just imagine-," Hawke said eagerly.

"Slow down, Pantaloons. Merchant's rule number one: no mixing business with pleasure," he said charmingly.

Hawke struck a giant frown at him, as if she gave him a final warning telepathically.

"Ok, fine, for you Hawke, I'll make an exception," Varric said charismatically and reached to hold on to his jacket as if he was about to get hit.

"That's better," she said warmly and reached for two gigantic backpacks. In a clumsy reach, her greatsword slipped and was about to fall from atop the baggage.

In a split second Fenris caught it and frowned at her. "What?" she asked awkwardly and frowned back at him. "I was going to catch that."

"Keep telling yourself that," Fenris said firmly. "One day you might even believe it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked assertively, putting the backpacks on and assuming an assaultive position.

"It means," he said determined and keeping his frown, "If you don't sleep, I'm going to kick you out of my house."

"Threats," Hawke said angrily.

"Oh, I'm beginning to crack up a story," Varric smirked mischievously. "In the dark of night, in the cold and relentless quiet of the abandoned mansion… Miss Priscilla Tuffpants just can't find herself to fall asleep," he started while gesturing dramatically.

Hawke crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to finish that sentence.

"She fidgets and turns from side to side in her borrowed bed, feeling the cold blanket, stripped of any sort of human contact."

"I'll give you three seconds to finish that sentence," Hawke said angrily.

Varric smirked, unaffected by her threat and continued , "She walks in the elf's bedroom and disturbs him from his eternal slumber and goes  _Monsieuuur, please tuck me in, I'm so cold and alone in that dark ghostly room._ "

"You're starting to sound like that pirate," Fenris said nonchalantly, shaking his head.

"Bah, it's just a tuck in. Don't project on me whatever dirty thoughts your mind's cracking up, elf," Varric said and grinned.

"There are no dirty thoughts," Fenris said firmly and frowned.

"Sure. And I'm a pretty fairy sprinkling little pink fairy dust with my pretty little pink fairy wand," Varric said sarcastically.

"You're a very odd dwarf," Fenris said nonchalantly.

Varric laughed, "And you thought I was joking about that pin." He continued laughing in his old man voice and started impersonating some Orlesian-sounding booger going all  _Monsieuuur, I would like to come out of your nose._

"I need to take a bath. 'Til June," Hawke sighed and shook her head.


	11. So Far, So Good... So What?

**Sunset, Fenris's Mansion**

"So they know your name and I don't?" he asked grinning as they ventured into the courtyard. "That is unacceptable. I demand restitution."

"For what? You bit the dust and placed bets on me with Varric. You're no angel," she said and grinned.

"Fair enough. I will find out somehow," Fenris said in a determined voice and smiled.

"Of course you will," she said sarcastically, seeming to laugh at a private joke inside.

He looked at her with an assaultive look, "Of course I will."

"You should open up a luxury inn here," Hawke said in amusement as they entered the mansion.

"I imagine the Senechal will be so impressed with such a practical idea that not only will he look the other way at my borrowing this mansion, he'll even pat me on the back and invite me to his noble parties," Fenris said sarcastically, his weary eyes falling asleep before he could even reach the bedroom.

"Well, that's a disturbing image I won't be getting out my head any time soon," Hawke said sarcastically as she walked in the hallway. One of the loosely hanging paintings utterly collapsed to the ground. "Time to redecorate that wall."

"I am running short on wine bottles, since I'm giving them away freely to deceiving redheaded clown mages, apparently," Fenris said sarcastically.

"And I'm running short on finding reasonable excuses to visit you," Hawke said in amusement.

"I am not the Viscount, Hawke. As long as you don't break into my house at night, you are welcome to visit," Fenris said nonchalantly as they simply stopped in the middle of the hallway.

"Oh, so I can walk in during the day whenever it itches me?" Hawke said and grinned.

"No," he said flatly. "Knocking has been invented for a reason. But there's only one insane human I know who would trespass during the day," he said lightly. "You won't meet my blade, just an angry old elf with a particular inconvenience with you."

"How old are you, anyway? You can never tell with elves, they all seem young, even when they're grizzled. Oh…," she looked at him as if she realized something, "Don't tell me you're a hundred and fifty or something."

He smirked, "Wouldn't you like to know." He knew she was aware that his hair was not grizzled because of old age.

"I'll tell if you tell," she said childishly.

"I'm more interested in your name, than your age," he said flatly, hoping this was enough grounds for her to tell him.

She eyed him suspiciously, "Well look who's creepy now, old man."

"I'm.. sorry?"

"Never mind. I won't even remember this conversation by morning. Better I just sleep on it," she said firmly, but a thought stopped her pace. "Hm. I take it you have gotten surprise visits for tea and cakes from the slavers?"

"Not yet," he said. "I await their return, however."

"Let them come," she said assertively. "We'll give them reason to cry and beg for death."

He couldn't help smiling. "Certainly."

"Well, I take it that's my bedroom. Unless you've decided to lose the bet. Well, somehow you've already lost it. But, alas, semantics," she said warmly.

He laughed softly, "There's a reason they exist, as luck would have it."

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Fenris's Mansion**

Fenris couldn't fall asleep. He started muttering curse words, got up from his bed and leaned his hands on the window that refracted the moonlight ever so pointlessly. He closed his eyes, his body heating slowly, only to burn truly when he remembered everything that happened in the Deep Roads. His loosing blood like a waterfall when that dragon chewed him like an insect, the sweet mending light that ignored his markings - or the other way around -, Hawke's agitated state, hitting and pushing him away, scratching and plunging her claws into his skin, trying to get out of his strong grip, the moment his heart stopped as he let go of her hand when they were being dragged by the wraith's magnetic field. Her ghostly face stripped of colour in the rain.

His breathing slowed down in the beams of the moonlight, as he recalled that bath incident. He was no fool; whatever the demon stirred inside him, as it slowly animated him into doing what he wanted to do, it had to come from an already existing desire. Of course, it was simply the ultimate desire of flesh, that every being who wasn't, well, castrated, had felt. But what in the Void was he thinking? It was baffling to him to recall now, even in all this certainty, that he merely agreed to get in. How did she even convince him again? Maddening.

The utter stupidity and remarkable idiocies he muttered were so impressive it was hard not to laugh at himself. He even called her 'friend', as if it were nothing, as if it was natural and inevitable and they were old pals meeting for drinks and games every night. Well, they  _were_ meeting for drinks and games every night, but that was just a poor example. A friend was much more than that, even  _he_ could fathom that little concept.

He heard the distant sighs again, the crying, was it of lost souls? Lost, yes...It seemed as if great luminous continuity was there, - overlooking the irony in that metaphor as he was standing in front of the window in the moonlight - as if his fate and all his past decisions were suddenly connected and vitally important, yet it was all slipping away...  
But he didn't feel lost. Disoriented, was a much better word.

He recalled her preparing to hit him in the rain when she said he was impertinent to suggest this was just a debt that had to be repaid. Or a mere teaming up out of practicality. Were they friends, then? Preposterous. Varric was her friend and he proved it every time he had only to say a warm joke and she would be receptive and calm down in a serious situation. With him and Hawke, however, jokes were means of attacking each other and led to a continuous, endless rant of beating around the bush from the original topic and ending up with an abominable pile of wild exaggerations.

A much more intelligent voice in him was laughing softly at him, telling him he was fooling himself.  _She's sleeping in your mansion and you wouldn't allow anyone in, you idiot. You offered and don't tell me it's just because you sympathize with her grief. Isn't that simply what friends would do? Well, how could you know?_ Then Varric's voice joined the laughing party  _– You'll understand when you grow up._

He felt the urge to laugh, thinking how many wild bets the dwarf and the pirate probably placed on him. Yes, that pirate and her pointless efforts to subvert him, because she knew that beyond all the battalion of defences, he was just a man – and she knew men. Even so, the pirate was trying to make use of general tendencies, while he did not care for them. That was juvenile. Maybe if the pirate simply went straight up to him and asked him to go upstairs with her, he would have given her more credit for trying all while refusing.

The woman was evasive and dishonest, he smelled selfishness and a complete lack of consideration for her 'friends'. Hawke wasn't evasive – not in that way, at least – and she was bull-headed in her honesty and caring for her friends. Even her little jokes about their private bet were enjoyable, because unlike the pirate, Hawke wasn't intent on doing anything about it. She did not point out her womanhood, at all, even. She didn't want him and she didn't tease him. She wasn't making use of generalities either, but rather technicalities, details. In her presence, he didn't feel like a former slave, nor an elf. He felt like a simple man, all because of her not disregarding it, but also because she didn't point it out either. He was just a man to be taken seriously and that required patience most would not have.

The intelligent voice inside him started laughing again, because he was brooding his eyes out instead of seeing reason and going to sleep. Dazzling how the first thing he does when he finally gets out of that hellhole – he overthinks and loses himself in semantics.

"Forgive me, Monsieur," Hawke's voice came from the doorway. She was leaning against it and smiling. "It appears Varric intuited correctly – on the not being able to sleep part, I mean."

Baffling. He didn't even hear her. He turned around with his back against the window. "Do you want me to tuck you in?" he said, trying to keep a straight face, but he couldn't control his soft laughter.

"Maker's breath, no," she said. "I still have some dignity."

"Good to know," he said flatly, trying not to laugh and sizing her up as she was wearing a curious red dressing gown – clearly made for a man.

She looked him bewildered and gazed down upon her clothes, "Oh, I found this in a closet. I couldn't stand my clothes anymore, since they're all knitted with chainmail," she said, drawing a sad face, "I do not mean to offend."

"You are not," he said nonchalantly. He couldn't even think of Danarius. The difference was baffling.

She looked the other way, rushing to think of something so the subject of the fleeing master would be closed. "Hm. I could have sworn you slept in that armour, too."

He looked down at his white linen shirt and short black pants, as if he forgot he was wearing them. "Well, I had thought of that, but then I was walking down the market one day and I thought – to the Void with that, I'd rather be a ballerina," he said sarcastically, gesturing and rising on his toes.

He laughed softly as she watched her burst into tears of laughter. He felt relief that he thought of that joke so quickly and it was actually successful, because she had not laughed like that for a long time.

"Well, I know why I can't sleep," Hawke started. "But what is keeping you up?"

"Semantics," he said without realizing he was thinking out loud. "I mean," he stuttered and diverted quickly, "There's nothing keeping me up, but there is something holding me down _,"_  he said, masking the relief of changing the meaning of the words.

"And what is that?" she asked, stepping in the room.

"The usual questions people ask themselves when they have nothing else better to do," he said nonchalantly, pressing his back against the window more, as if to keep a larger distance from her.

"Reasons to exist?" she asked.

"Shocking, isn't it?" Fenris asked sarcastically. "That I'm free and yet I still have to think about it."

She grinned and looked the other way, "Thoughts are imprecise," she said, taking a seat in front of the fireplace. "I consider speech to be the greatest gift of all races. It sheds much more clarity than soaking up in one's own endless and deceiving thoughts."

"Oh?" he asked drawing a grin and approaching the armchair next to hers. "Aren't words deceiving?"

"Not unless you make them so. If you are honest and speak your mind, it's much easier to have realizations than to silently argue with yourself."

"Yes. Because arguing with you instead is such a fountain of clarity," he said sarcastically. He slumped in the armchair and raised his knee, resting his foot on the seat cushion like a man would do in his private study.

"Those arguments were because we made them so. You poked once, I poked back, you poked again, I beat you with a large bat," she said and smiled. "Besides, there is a functionality to arguments, especially if you are not initiating them just to bark."

"Is that so?" Fenris asked with a deep gaze. "But why are you so intent on going on about this? Is the mess in my soul suddenly a fascination to you?"

"There are several reasons, yes," she said. "And probably the strongest reason is the manner in which you sought to prod me of my magehood. Very few seek understanding and not just a reason to demean somebody and shed light only on their own arguments. Like Anders does with you. He only pretends to understand your slavery years to use it as an argument for why you would be a hypocrite not to root for the freedom of any beings, regardless."

He watched her carefully and listened. She continued, "Few really  _ask._ On the contrary, they try to find answers from the unknown, that they have already shaped into their mind – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation. Few ask and are prepared for the answer to annihilate the question or the questioner. But you have truly been asking, haven't you? In-between all your anger towards me."

"It has been quite astonishing to me, too, but yes," he said as he looked at her in awe, "I have wondered if I was wrong."

"Wouldn't you agree I have been doing the same thing? Not necessarily with my frustrating stratagems, but I won't divert from being guilty of that," she said laughing.

"You are indeed a strange woman," he said. "You have few preconceptions, even when facing me and my insistent need to attack you." She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He looked in the fireplace and continued, "In fact, you astound me because you admit to such extraordinary simplicity. A man is either good or bad, and if he's bad, he's dead," he said nonchalantly. "You just want a purpose."

"True," she said. "Rather crude, isn't it?"

He gave another soft laugh, "No. Not really," he said. "I'm clueless, myself."

She looked at the fireplace, then back at him as if she was looking through him. "Rather curious, isn't it? It's as if thousands of years of civilization have finally produced an innocent."

"An innocent? You're not speaking of me," he said bewildered.

"I am, in fact. And I'm inclined to believe somewhere deep inside you see me as innocent, too," she said as she gazed at him and narrowed her eyes.

He looked down and hesitated, then looked up at her. "Perhaps."

"My father used to talk about the savage garden of Thedas, that we are all bound by the corrupting force of different civilizations that simply do not want to understand each other. And that we must find our way back to the innocence that has been lost," she said meditatively.

He frowned at her as he listened and she grinned, "Well, I thought it was nonsense, too. People can be truly primitive in their assumptions and expectations."

"You mean me?" he asked flatly.

"No, you have experience. You are only cautious. You didn't start torturing mages just to get back at their whole race for one man who stripped you of your freedom."

Fenris inhaled and listened to her continue, "The Chantry and the Templars in Kirkwall. They exaggerate because they are allowed to, they have it within their power to do so. They cannot conceive of innocence," she said as she looked at him with sorrowful eyes.

He nodded as for her to go on. "And I find myself wondering if somewhere in the future, the world would finally take remark on people who behave innocently. For the first time to just look about themselves and go, 'What the hell is this!'" she said, gesturing dramatically.

"You have a point. But I am not innocent," he said. "Godless, yes. I come from godless people and I'm glad of it. I know what good and evil are in a very practical sense. So do you," he said unperturbed and eyeing her insistently. She nodded and he continued, "But I am not an innocent. I must be held accountable for my own actions, even if my plight has been given onto me by others, against my will. I was my master's bodyguard. I complied to his every wish, killed whomever he ordered me to, followed him wherever he wanted me to, like a dog," he said bitterly, his face forming the expression of disgust.

"I'm sensing a Qunari rant coming about. You were given a role and you were free to choose within that role. Choosing not to be meant choosing to die," she rambled sarcastically.

"Yes, and as you can see, I am alive. So I am not innocent," he said angrily.

"But you are. You say you are godless, but you don't seek any system to justify it, either. That is still innocence. And deep down, you feel you are. And how you feel inside is important, especially when you have the intelligence to doubt it," she said as she drew a warm smile. "You are guilty of killing for your master that held you in captivity, but you are not guilty of lying or creating evil systems of thought. Like some do," she said bitterly, pertaining to the Chantry.

He hesitated, because she made sense, then said, "So I am innocent because I am absent of illusions?"

"Absent of the need for illusions," she corrected him.

He looked into the fireplace again, "It is something to ponder on, at least."

"No pondering. Speak," she said abruptly.

"I don't know what to say," he confessed while smiling at her.

"Yes, that's the other reason I wanted to know you better," she said. "Your honesty."

He laughed, "Am I to be given credit because I admit of my own incognizance?"

"Exactly. All you know is that you don't know. Admitting it shows dignity. What more could you ask of a man?"

He smiled, "I don't know."

She laughed at his repetition and said, "Your questions are different than the others. We have that in common. We did not grow expecting much of others and the burden of conscience was private, terrible tough it might be. But you could ask me, and I could ask you. It shouldn't be this hard. We could find out together."

He was in awe of her, all in the radiance of her warm eyes and the bone-hard way in which she spoke. He was beginning to understand that Hawke was indeed, something else, and that she was alone in her struggles to find her role, make sense of her place in this world. He couldn't imagine her having deep conversations about such things with her brother or with Varric. Maybe she had them with her sister or her father, but they were gone. And she was alone.

She noticed the trance-like state in which Fenris looked at her and raised an eyebrow, "What?"

He hesitated, "Nothing," he said as he looked away, but returned to meet her eyes. "Well, it's a bit hard for me to find you insufferable now."

She was getting used to the shifts in his face, between the perfect mask he wore and the occasional leakage of expression, the steady vitality of his gaze that he only allowed her to see, as far as she could tell.

She smiled, "Such a shame, no?" she asked sarcastically. "And all it took was what? A few months of mocking and barking, a dragon, a few near death experiences, a desire demon and an honest eye to eye conversation in the middle of the night," she said as she started to laugh.

He flinched and shuddered quickly and she noticed. "What? Was it the desire demon that made you flinch?"

He remained silent as he couldn't afford to speak his mind about it, but she did say neither of them understood, but were seeking to. Wouldn't it be easier to just speak his mind, as he already started to?

"Yes," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Well, at least something is clear from that experience," she said assertively.

He stopped his breathing, expecting her to say with confidence that he would certainly lose the bet. He did not know himself. All while becoming so relaxed in her presence, he did not take notice of how much he was heating up, how tense he was whenever he would look at her directly, because she  _was_  beautiful.

"That you are a terrible mage?" he smirked defensively.

"Well, yes,  _that,_ of course. But we've already established that from the moment you called me 'clown mage'. I am very much intent on living up to that name," she said sarcastically.

"I called you troll mage too. Are you going to turn into a putrid green hideous giant that reeks of sponges and highweeds and ask me to call you Bob?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not until you grow wings and fly away as a genuine barking mad elven cockatoo," she stung back.

"Perhaps I don't want to fly away," he said nonchalantly, pondering on something else.

"You're welcome to stay as a wounded little bird, but be wary of how much you're intent on leaving that wound open," she said determined.

"I could say the same thing to you," he retorted.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked bewilderedly and frowned.

"Something happened to you, Hawke. Not now, a long time ago. Every other tragedy just piled on top of it and is hurting you even more," he said firmly.

She hesitated and looked away, "Well, wouldn't you like to know?" she smirked.

"I would," Fenris said assertively. "Unless you do not wish to speak of it." He would be a hypocrite to demand the truth when he couldn't talk about his past himself.

"I don't," she said bitterly. She inhaled and remained silent. "Well, where was I? Ah, yes. We know one thing from that desire demon fiasco."

He swallowed heavily, cursing in his mind that she remembered and used this as a means to divert from talking about herself.

"And what's that?" he asked nonchalantly.

"That you're not some creepy self-sufficient statue our little merry band thinks you are. You actually have desires."

"Is that some polite way of noticing I prefer women?" he asked flatly and containing his grin.

"Yes, that's about right," she lied through semantics.

"I can imagine how that would be an alarming shock for everyone," he said sarcastically and sighed.

"It's a game for them. They're still trying to place bets on who finds out  _my_ preference first, if my hair colour is real, if I have red chest hair, if I'm little miss purity or the whore of the Anderfels," she said and smirked at the enumeration.

"At least I found out you don't have … chest hair," he said raising an eyebrow.

"How much did you find out, I wonder?" she asked while narrowing her eyes. "It's impossible that you hadn't seen anything."

He smirked, "Is it that hard to believe that I'm so unfortunate?"

"Unfortunate? Well, I'll take that as a compliment, I think," she said awkwardly.

"I told you I would practice my flattery for your next visit," he said and smiled.

"Let me flatter you instead. I have been very fortunate back there," she said and grinned.

"Oh?" he asked hesitantly.

"I really didn't expect you to be so…," she thought carefully, "I don't know, muscular, hunky, almost like you were sculptured."

"It wasn't a pleasant process of achieving this," he said bitterly.

"Well, I'm jealous. I would love to have muscles like that."

"You and Aveline both."

"Well, forgive us for being ambitious."

He laughed, "You are stronger than you think you are. You gave me quite a hard time restraining you," he said while looking at his left arm holding only the ghost of the deep wound that she gave him back there.

"Oh, right, that's true. How impertinent of me," she said sarcastically.

"Indeed. You didn't even have the courtesy to apologize," he retorted the sarcasm.

"Should I have also kissed it to make it all better?" she asked mockingly.

"Well," he frowned and hesitated, then smirked. "It couldn't hurt."

She smirked, "Oh, but I didn't. Alas," she said and smiled. "Maybe you should ask Isabella next time."

"Preposterous," he said bitterly.

"Oh come on, you said you liked women. And she's very much a woman, if you get my drift," she said in amusement.

"She may be a woman, but not much else," he said flatly, looking at the fireplace.

"What do you mean?" she asked bewilderedly.

"She puts it out there too much – that she is a woman, and so she loses the chance to be a person," he explained. "But that was her choice. She wants people to see her that way."

"Don't we all do that? Not with our gender, but with any particular trait we want to exaggerate – to defend ourselves with? Like it's our shield."

"True. But it depends how much we exaggerate it," he continued.

"Well, fair enough," she said, pondering on it. "What would you say is my 'shield'?"

He thought about it carefully then looked at her. "Where do I even begin? Your jokes, your quoted words of wisdom, your reckless and frustrating insistence that you don't need any help?"

"That's exactly what you do, only in a different style," she said sharply, only realizing it just now.

He inhaled heavily, thinking about it. "Alert the Chantry. I have things in common with a mage."

"Shocking, isn't it?" she laughed. "Clearly it must be a conspiracy."

"Had I known that when I first met you, I would have said it was deeply embarrassing," he said flatly.

"And now?" she asked and grinned.

"Impressive. And baffling. Alas, will wonders never cease," he said nonchalantly.

"You remind me of someone, you know?" she started gracefully.

"There are more of you?" he sighed sarcastically.

"There are a million of me inside my head. It's really entertaining. But what I meant was, you remind me of my father," she said while looking at him with sudden warm eyes.

"Then the mystery of why you called me 'Father' when you had that mental breakdown is finally eluded," he smirked.

She froze in astonishment, "What?"

"You did. You also called me a vile old man and shouted at me to stop tricking you into staying into that dark pit more than we should have. You called Varric 'Ser Dwarf' and the mage 'King Alistair'."

She looked down as if it unsettled her deeply. "Well… shit."

"I don't understand. Is there something wrong?" he asked in confusion.

"No," she said hesitantly. "I mean, yes. You kept saying things my father used to say and it was a bit of a shock to know now that I hallucinated him in you."

"Well that's a relief. I thought he was a grizzled old lanky man with pointy years and a fondness for whining and throwing bottles into walls," he said sarcastically, trying to lighten the mood.

She laughed softly, "He was grizzled and old, but not much else from that list." She looked in the fireplace. "He also told me to stop throwing myself into things I don't understand."

He smiled shortly, "Maybe you should have listened to us, then. You can't deny such reliable sources," he said sarcastically.

"Or maybe you should trust me. That could also prove itself effective," she said and frowned.

"I'm sensing you didn't get along with him very well either," he asked perceptively.

"I did, but, it took a long time," she said and grinned, since it was the same with them. "We'd disagree and argue about so many things only to end up saying the same thing in a different manner. But we stubbornly disagreed symbolically, out of pride or something," she said while remembering. "And we did have great times squandering the depths of life  _and_ making everything seem like a big joke," she said laughed.

She looked in the fireplace meditatively. "He trusted me, somehow, that I would find my own way. But he kept that little doubt in his soul and I could always see it," she said bitterly.

"You said something about him checking you for demonic possession," he remembered.

"Oh, yes. Some things one does not want to remember." She sighed. "But that's a story for another time," she said and smiled.

"So you did make us of your magic once," he said while eyeing her for an honest answer.

"As a child yes, but once I grew up, hardly ever. As I said, it doesn't really interest me that much. That was the mystery. He was even glad to see me train in swordplay with Carver all the time."

Fenris looked down as if he just remembered something.

"That is something I failed to appreciate about you," he said knightly.

"Oh?" she asked bewilderedly.

"You are worthy of respect. For trying to be more than you have been born as. It is not a path for the faint-hearted; I should know."

"Well, thank you for your honest flattery. I thought you'd never notice," she said sarcastically.

He smirked, "I shall endeavour to make up for my impertinence," he said sarcastically.

"Perish the thought. What would the others say when they see us getting along? The horror!" she said dramatically.

He laughed softly, "They will – as Varric would say - check the sky for flying pigs and say 'What will they think of next? Templars and mages holding hands and dancing the remigold!'", he said as he gestured sarcastically.

"That sounds like Varric," she said and laughed. "All while going," she paused to clear her throat and impersonate him, " _No shit, and then they walked into the sunrise together and lived happily ever after. True story._ "

"The mage would probably say we had both gotten possessed by wondering spirits of friendship and compassion and the pirate would say we magically tripped and fell into the same bed and decided to physically discharge of all the hate," he said while gesturing dramatically.

She laughed, "That's disturbing."

He felt relaxed, for once. And with her of all people. He saw her in a different light, much like the old one, but he started feeling the way he did when he was animated by that demon, only now – at least, he hoped not – he wasn't possessed. Not by a demon, anyway. More by a sweet sensation of being free and himself in front of her, who - he couldn't deny any longer – was strong, honest, abrupt in her demands for others to grow a pair and see eye to eye; and heartbreakingly beautiful.

"Is that so?" he asked in a deep sensual voice, pondering something.

"Well, being possessed is no reason to throw tea parties and cheer for the absolute," she said sarcastically.

"Right," he said and coughed awkwardly.

She narrowed her eyes and grinned, "And ending up in bed will not discharge of any boiling anger towards each other. Now, other bodily tensions, that's something else. You did say the bed would break, 'tis true," she said while grinning tigerishly.

"I can see how that would be disturbing," he deflected.

"Luckily there's no desire demon to possess us anymore," she said while laughing.

"Are you sure? You did say you are terrible at it," he said nonchalantly.

"Do you see me jumping at your neck and demanding that you rip my clothes off with your strong hands and take me to your bed just two feet away?" she asked gesturing dramatically, a bit provocatively.

He hesitated as her words were very confusing and commanding, despite being sarcastic. "No."

"Well, there you have it. No demon," she said confidently and winked at him.

"And glad I am to heart it," he said flatly and went back to his battalion of cockatoo defences.

That was so unworthy of him, to talk like that. What was he even thinking. It angered him and he couldn't wait for her to go and leave him be, all while still wanting her to stay.

He got up quickly. "You should be sleeping, Hawke."

She looked to her right and to her left and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks. I haven't noticed."

"I assume I do not need to remind you what I said at the gates," he said firmly and frowned.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite remember. Refresh my memory," she said sarcastically.

He crossed his arms. "I said that if you didn't sleep, I would kick you out."

"And yet you failed to live up to that threat for about an hour now. Kind of too late now," she said angrily.

He chuckled, "It is still my house and I make the rules. There is no time limitation for when I decide to do it."

"So, that's how it is? You abuse of my company because you can't sleep but I get the boot the moment I end up boring you?" she asked aggressively.

He hesitated, "No. Of course not. What I abused of is your availability as you couldn't sleep either. And it was unworthy of me."

"How is that different from me doing the same thing?" she asked in outrage, but controlling herself.

He sighed, "Because I am not sleep-deprived. Not like you. You barely ate, you barely slept. I'm not a fool, Hawke. I saw you faking it for days on end," he said angrily and frowned even more.

"A simple 'thank you for all your trouble' would have sufficed," she said sarcastically.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically and pointed at the other room. "Now go and sleep."

"Is that my final warning, Ser Fenris?" she asked mockingly.

"It is," he said flatly and crossed his arms again.

"Then no need to make your face crack with that gigantic frown of yours. I'll show myself out," she said firmly and got up.

"Hawke," Fenris said sharply.

"Save it, Fluffhead," she said bitterly and went out the room.

He followed her to the other room but she smashed the door right in his nose. "Hawke, I-," he hesitated and cursed in his mind. "Stay."

"No, no," he heard her from beyond the door. "I wouldn't want to be so impertinent as to keep you up and bored just out of my own frustrating stubbornness."

"Hawke, you're being ridiculous," he said angrily and put a hand on the door.

"I'm a clown mage," he heard her mutter. The door then opened and she was fully armoured. "Just trying to live up to that name."

"Vishante kaffas. Why are you acting like this?" he asked angrily. "I wasn't going to tie and gag you so you could finally see reason."

She chuckled, "No, you were just going to kick me out."

"And have I?" he half-shouted.

"You didn't get to. I kicked myself out," she said aggressively and frowned. She put her backpack and walked past him.

"Fine, be that way," he said angrily as she walked down the stairs in a rush. "Have a great night, Hawke."

"Hildegaard," she muttered in annoyance.

"What?" he shouted.

She turned back only to look at him in the hallway. "My full name is Hildegaard Bianca Hawke. First one is too stupid, the other is the same with Varric's stupid crossbow. There. That's my name. Great times, you have a good night now," she said angrily and gestured sarcastically.

"Venhedis, fastavas," he cursed in anger and kicked the wall. That impossible woman. What did he do now? He must have blacked out from exhaustion and muttered angry words about mages in his sleep, he thought sarcastically. He felt like punching the wall, but he pressed his eyes together and sighed and went back in silence to his room.

He frowned and went back to his bed, swearing continuously, only to feel like a complete fool and realize this was all a big fat cheap stratagem to make them go back to how they were before.

* * *

 

**Next Day, The Hanged Man**

"Hawke! Oh… Elf. Wait, she isn't with you?" Varric asked as Fenris entered his room.

"No," Fenris said flatly.

"But I went by her house and she wasn't there either," Varric said bewilderedly and frowned. "What did you do now?"

"Believe me, I would love to know myself," Fenris muttered bitterly and rolled his eyes.

"What in the Void is this?" Aveline shouted while rushing into the room and holding a tank of paper with the Viscount's seal on them.

"What's going on?" Varric asked her in confusion.

"Obligational demands for the Amell estate along with a bunch of other papers that instated Leandra Hawke as the sole proprietor as soon as the money comes in. I also received papers to my office about some 'private account for the  _Gracefully Wicked And Utterly Insufferable_ ' that instates Leandra and 'Chuckleberry Limbomaster McFattso' as share holder for any coin you make from the expedition. And this," she shouted in anger and shoved a piece of paper in Varric's hands.

" _I'm sorry for leaving this way, but it had to be done. All of you keep safe and know that I am grateful for everything_?" Varric read out loud in outrage. "Is this a joke?"

"Isn't everything a joke with Hawke?" Aveline shouted. "Pray this is one is too."

"I don't understand. She just left? For where?" Varric shouted in confusion. "What the hell happened in less than twelve hours from when we were last together?" He looked at Fenris and frowned. "What the hell happened?" he shouted.

"Nothing happened," Fenris almost shouted angrily. "She couldn't sleep and she left."

"And she didn't say anything about leaving? A euphemism, a stupid wise quote, anything?" Aveline shouted at Fenris and gestured.

"No," he said flatly and lifted his eyebrows.

Varric put his hand on his forehead and inhaled heavily. "Fuck the eighteen generations of my ancestors and fuck the sodding Deep Roads, blighted nuglickers and constipated brontos, sod the Chantry full of possessed grannies, sod the numskull Templars and this whole sodding city," he shouted and kept muttering and swearing as he almost smashed the table.

"If she's really gone, I'm going to find her even if she's hiding in the darkest pit in the Anderfels. And then I'm going to kill her," Aveline muttered angrily and refrained from punching the door as she left.


	12. Stranger In A Strange Land

**3 months later, Morning, The Hanged Man**

"You're fading, elf," Varric said awkwardly with a small concerned look.

"I'm not fading," he assured him aggressively.

"You're staring at that table just like-," Varric paused, "used to when she was brooding. I wonder who's copying who," Varric said charmingly and took a sip from his pint.

"Yes, such a horrible, lurid, bitch of a table. I suggest taking your distance when I viciously smash it into little horrible bitch pieces," Fenris said sarcastically with a hint of bitterness.

"Your sarcasm is getting stale this lovely morning. Might wanna check your face. It looks like any minute now it's gonna grow little grumpy pointy spikes to match your armor," Varric retorted and frowned.

Fenris broke his frigid, angry-meditative stillness. He picked up the drink, tossed down half of it. "Vishatta."

"Alright. I think you've had enough of that. It's not even noon and you're going hot-headed elven animated statue ready to fist someone just for looking at you the wrong way," Varric said angrily and took the drink away from him.

"I shall endeavor to exist with less offense," Fenris said sarcastically while narrowing his eyes at him.

"Elf," Varric said assaultively.

"Dwarf," Fenris said bitterly.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I see you've started early with wrapping yourselves in love and fluff this fine day," Isabela said charmingly as she walked over to their table.

"The only thing that's correct in that sentence is 'morning'," Varric said and sighed.

"Is Broody going at the table again?" Isabela asked Varric as she sat next to Fenris.

"Avert your eyes, wench," Fenris said bitterly and the corner of his nostril flinched.

"Nice try with changing only one word from your line to Kitten. I bet you've practiced it in your head a hundred times," Isabela said in amusement.

"Oh, cut him some slack. Mr. I'm-on-my-man-period here is out of original lines to bark at people with since he exhausted all of it on Hawke," Varric said in annoyance and inhaled heavily after the last word.

Fenris flinched at the sound of that name. Nobody had used it in a long time. There had been a mutual silent agreement between everyone that they wouldn't talk about it. And nobody knew what made them angrier - that they couldn't talk about it or that they wanted to talk about it and didn't know what to say.

"That's true. But you have me now! Come on, I'll dye my hair red and put on more clothes that don't show even a bit of skin. You can bark at me all day," Isabela said sweetly.

"You can never be her," Fenris said bitterly but in a very quiet tone so she didn't understand what he said. Fortunately, Varric had the sharp ears and selective attention that made him the master without equal that he was in his profession.

"What?" Isabela asked.

"How about a game of Wicked Grace to lighten the mood," Varric cut in quickly.

Fenris rolled his eyes and sighed, "Go ahead. I need to leave," he said calmly and got up.

"Coward," Isabela said quietly and started dealing the cards. Fenris stopped and looked at her with a homicidal look, but turned away and got out of the tavern. He was not a coward. Hawke was a coward.

Varric looked at Isabela with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, come on, somebody had to say it," she muttered and took her cards.

"Madam. I could write a book full of one-word sentences describing the son-of-a-bitch. Grumpy, quiet, solemnly angry, stubborn, insufferable, moping, high-maintenance, dangerous, unreasonable, seriously in need of mental check. Oh, my head is bursting with lovely adjectives. But coward?"

"Tell me one thing that changed about that adorable list recently. You can't tell me you haven't noticed," Isabela said with a mischievous grin.

"Why, I must have been busy that day checking out cute dwarven girls and fairy princesses," Varric said sarcastically. "The only thing I've noticed is most of those endearing traits have been increasing in intensity."

"Which ones exactly? Come on, Varric. How are you going to tell this story if you don't get your facts right?"

"I don't need to. I have a great imagination. Why waste it?"

Isabela raised an eyebrow and discarded a serpent.

Varric sighed. "Fine, Rivaini. Let's see. He's been much more quiet, less funny, his fondness for staring at tables has grown suspiciously high. Other than that, still grumpy, high-maintenance and can't shut up about mages."

"Did he talk with us about mages?" Isabela asked calmly.

"Well," Varric thought about it. "No. So he misses his only partner in mocking and barking that actually listens to him. I miss my partner in crime and pleasure, too. We're all grieving in our own way," he said as he looked down and brought his cards closer to him.

Isabela sighed since her psychological evaluation of Fenris seemed much less important now when Varric muttered those words.

"She was your best friend, wasn't she?" Isabela asked with a sad face.

"I don't wanna talk about it, Rivaini," Varric said quietly.

As he walked out of The Hanged Man, Fenris pressed his eyes shut and brushed his temples. For some time now, he'd wake up with his head throbbing and he stood silent about it until Varric saved his pride and offered him spindleweed tea from Anders and told him not to mention it. Ever.

He looked around himself to watch the never-changing disgusting scenery of the sad and empty Lowtown. It was crawling with humans, elves and dwarves, but it was sad and empty as far as he was concerned. He climbed the stairs up to Hightown and headed for the Keep. For about a month now, he'd go and visit Aveline when she was off duty. That stubborn woman wouldn't go out and take up a hobby if it killed her, which was peculiarly similar to what he wasn't doing either. The group had all but cheered for the absolute and even though it seemed as if it was crumbling and tearing apart, everyone keeping to their business and moving on with their lives, they'd all meet at least once a week at the tavern.

For all her flaws, Hawke left her print on their band and she was the thing that kept them together. Now it seemed as if they were trying to pretend they were still tied to each other symbolically, in her memory. And it wasn't far from the truth. They didn't want to accept that Hawke had just left them without even a proper goodbye. He wondered if that was the only reason they still talked to each other.

After all, now that Hawke was gone the group dynamics started to become much clearer. There was Fenris, Varric and Aveline, the bull-headed team that held on to some sense of honor and grumpy sarcasm. They'd meet up every now and then have too much to drink, discussing the bitch of life and the depths of the absolute. And then there was the abomination, the pirate and the blood mage who had their own curious little church full of senseless rants about prostitutes, mages and idiotic adventures.

But then there was this sharp and irritating, subtle wind between the first group. As if every time they'd look down they saw a ghost, only to look back up and continue their discussions with a particular kind of skepticism and sarcasm they fiercely enjoyed.

After Hawke left, Fenris helped Varric all through the ridiculous and irritating images and noises of Satinalia. They sold so much junk it was baffling. Varric was really a natural talent at bullshitting and even a much bigger one at bringing the attention exactly where he wanted to when telling the truth. The really valuable stuff they found they sold to all kinds of mad collectors, merchants and foreign nobles. They even sold a ring with the tiniest jewel one could see to an Antivan nobleman who wanted to pay a hundred sovereigns, but ended up paying half more because one of his "bodyguards", undoubtedly a Crow, attempted to pickpocket Varric.

Fenris was no fool. He may not have known anything about friends, emotions or proper, reasonable behavior, but he saw Varric wasn't himself. When he started visiting him at his mansion with different excuses, he knew he was trying to find or to cling on to something, without talking about it at all. And they both knew that neither of them wanted to talk about it. So they continued seeing each other almost on a daily basis, took jobs together, played cards, drank and even laughed. Fenris saw past Varric's charms and bullshit, and while he never took a break on making fun of him and muttering snarky comments - neither did Varric, anyway - he appreciated him for what he was. A loyal and honest friend.

Varric also saw past Fenris's grumpiness and anger and he knew that despite the horrors he went through, the elf tried to cling to a sense of honor and righteousness. He was no ordinary former slave and when he started to realize how hard it must have been for him to function in such a strange land, he cut him some slack.

But they wouldn't tell each other any of this, they were men - and men didn't talk about such nonsense.

When Aveline finally lost her patience and assured Fenris he was walking on thin ice with borrowing that mansion, he agreed to train the guards in his fighting techniques for a few days. It was tiresome and annoying and he couldn't stop swearing, but once it was done, they started visiting each other more often. Aveline was a woman, but he didn't expect her to take open notice of his behavior. She was too busy grieving, clinging to her sense of honor and not talking about it. Hawke took no break in saying she was family and she was the longest to be in Hawke's company. She was like a grumpier older sister that scolded Hawke for being so impulsive and childish, watching her back and giving her a sense of belonging. But that went down the drain too.

But the worst of them all was Hawke's mother, who was sitting alone in a giant mansion, childless. Fenris had no idea what it meant to have a family, in fact, none of them knew, not even Varric now, but he couldn't begin to understand how positively remarkable it was that Hawke found it reasonable to leave just when her brother was taken by the Grey Wardens. Leandra had been suddenly stripped of all her children.

And she didn't deserve such a thing. She was alone. At least in that respect, Fenris was experienced and for some reason, he couldn't let it go. So he didn't. Luckily for him, Leandra appreciated him from the first time he stepped into her home, the morning after he met Hawke. He didn't know why – he had been quiet and solemn, but she saw something in him, so she told him to visit whenever he wanted to. He felt unworthy – that was an understatement – but he went there, regardless, once a week and had tea and sometimes - most times – he stayed for dinner. She couldn't talk about it either. No, she was the last person to even begin to talk about such a travesty. But all while her statements and stories sounded impersonal, they were mere metaphors, indirect mentions of her children and her pain.

He remembered one of his visits. Every time she wanted to make dinner he would refuse politely and feel ashamed, keeping to his knightly tendencies, but she would always laugh and insist and she would always convince him to stop with his tortured, self-sufficient image. It was not out of pity and he thanked her for reminding him of it without even saying it.

She seemed meditative as they drank the after-dinner tea and said, "It should be pouring in Ferelden right now," she said calmly with a ghost of bitterness. "Well, that's merely a platitude. It's always raining in Ferelden. Does it rain much in Minrathous? I'm just curious, I do not mean to offend."

"You are not offending," he said calmly. "It does. This time of year, almost too much. However, it is very hot where I come from. Harsh, I even dare say."

She chuckled, "Then I guess we are both trying to adjust to this change in climate. It's strange though."

"What is?" he asked calmly.

"The baffling difference between civilizations and races and yet, we are all but a sack of meat with the same heart beating and beating… until it just stops," she whispered and gestured.

He remained silent and she continued, "My husband had such a soft spot for endless debates about the universe. That and making everything seem like a joke. Philosophy and jokes. That was Malcolm," she said warmly.

"I have been told he was a great man," he said calmly.

"That's what brought us closer, but oh, we couldn't suffer each other in the beginning. You put us in a room together and we'd fight like mad rats. I don't even remember why. Maybe because every time I tried to make him talk seriously he would just cook up some sarcastic line and he made me want to beat him up. I was at the Viscount's Keep when the Circle was performing for Satinalia and this curious bird made out of paper just flew straight into my hair and remained stuck. I heard someone smirking in the crowd."

"And it was him?"

"Oh, it was him alright. But he got lost in the crowd and I couldn't see who he was. Only later did I meet him as my cousin, who had passed his Harrowing, was there and I wanted to congratulate him. He was talking to this clownish lad who I assumed was a fellow apprentice and when I started putting on my noble airs, he smirked and tried not to laugh. That's when I knew who the culprit was. We started arguing right in the middle of the grand hall and he just kept making fun of me, oh, he was so frustrating!"

Fenris grinned a bit, as he imagined the scene and she continued. "After that nightmare, we bumped into each other in Kirkwall a lot of times and the war between us began. But neither of us could afford to have snarky chit chats in broad daylight and for some reason, he started throwing those stupid paper birds inside my window at night. Well, more like levitated them. He knew that if I started barking at him in the middle of the night my father would get alarmed, so he started breaking into my house at least once a week. It became sort of a tradition."

Fenris raised an eyebrow and she chuckled, "Oh, I know how that sounds. But we couldn't see each other otherwise."

"And you wanted to see him? Even if he drove you mad?" Fenris asked bewilderedly.

"It sounds silly, but yes. At times I wouldn't see him and I just had to know he was there, somewhere, and that he would return. And I knew somehow that he would. It wasn't always arguments and name calling. The hours just went on and on and I'd find myself debating every possible subject with him and enjoying it," she said and looked down. "We were both just too proud and inexperienced to behave otherwise. But it seemed like every argument just led to the same result. We kept agreeing on things we first started out as disagreeing and it wasn't long before I realized it was just a dance."

"A dance?" he asked calmly.

"Yes. It's like a dance, when you're taken with each other. When you start to realize you have feelings, you cling to the manner in which your relationship started as if to find a security, to defend yourself from the unknown," she said warmly. "But it's marvellous, the unknown, once you're ready to embrace it."

"I think I understand," he said flatly and looked down.

"When he had to flee Kirkwall, I thought I'd never see him again. And it broke my heart. But when the Orlesian Empress came to the city and I went to the masked ball, he was there. All in Orlesian clothes and a hawk's mask, smiling at me in the crowd and I could swear he was going to throw another one of his stupid birds at me," she said and laughed.

"I imagine it must have been hard to hide all the time," he said, pondering on it.

"It was worth it, Fenris. I could not have cared less about him being a mage. I just saw a man, a good man," she said warmly. "And while it was hard, I think the hardest part was  _his_ refusal to see that."

"What do you mean?" he asked bewilderedly.

She pressed her eyes as if she saw a ghost, but inhaled quickly and looked back at him. "He wasn't an ordinary mage. He didn't want to be one, yes, like any other, but he struggled for a long time with it. He was an excellent warrior and that's all he wanted to be. He despised his powers and hated that he had to hide because of them. And while that seemed noble and righteous of him, I had to make him see that he needed to accept who he was. And it was good while it lasted, but when we found out Hildegaard was a mage, it was like his biggest fear had come to haunt him. And as luck would have it, he didn't need to cast his 'demons' onto her… she just turned into him without outside effort," Leandra said and sighed heavily.

He remained silent and pondered on it, as if he had a grand realization.

"You're afraid for her life," Fenris said calmly.

"No. I'm not, really…" Leandra said and looked down. "I know her. I know that whatever she's doing now, she deserves to have the right to do so. Maker only knows how much she sacrificed for our well-being," she said and inhaled. "She needs to know who she is outside of the family and she needs to accept it, whatever it may be. And I know she is going to come back."

He couldn't help but smile at her words. "In the meantime, I have you to mother about," she chuckled. "Forgive me, but old habits die hard."

"There is no need to apologize," he said and smiled. "It has been my pleasure to be mothered."

"You are a good man, Fenris. I know you can't find the strength to admit it just yet, but what I can do is confirm it for you, even if you won't listen to me," she said and chuckled. "That's how it is with children. They never listen until it's almost too late. But once you pester them less and give them the freedom to find their own answers, they'll come back and thank you that you loved them either way."

He looked down in shame, as if he didn't deserve to be in her presence. "Thank you."

"For what it's worth, Fenris, your mother, wherever she is now, would be very proud of you."

He masked away a smile through his hair and remained silent.

She smiled. "Malcolm and I haven't cracked the secrets of the universe. But I think the world is meant to remain a mystery. If there is any explanation to why this is happening," she said bitterly, pertaining to the mages, "we are not meant to hit upon it. We should just embrace it and do everything we can out of love and for what is good. Of that much I'm sure."

* * *

**Another 3 months later, Barracks**

As Fenris came into Aveline's office, she saw her brush her eyes as if she was crying.

"I'm … sorry. Is this a bad time?" he asked knightly, feeling awkward.

She inhaled and took her hand away from her eye, "No. Come in." She walked by her desk and sat on in her chair looking grim, but trying to mask it.

"Aveline," he said flatly while sitting down in front of her.

She looked blankly into the wall on her left and sighed, "It would be two years today since we arrived in Kirkwall."

"Would?" he asked bewilderedly.

"Yes, would. There are less of us now, as you can see," Aveline said bitterly.

"Right," he said calmly.

She turned to him and got out a bottle of champagne from her desk and put it next to the two glasses resting on a plate. "I couldn't afford to buy something like this last year so Hawke and I just agreed to drink the cheap whisky at the tavern until we landed face-down on the table. When I got my first pay check as captain, the first thing I did was buy this and I saved it for a special occasion."

"And this would be that special occasion," Fenris said nonchalantly, watching her frown and gaze at the wall again.

"That's about right. And now I have no use for it," she said bitterly.

He couldn't believe that he was going to say this, but all the tension and the bitterness that just kept piling up around them by not talking about it was becoming ridiculous and even he could fathom out that it was time for closure, even if neither were ready.  _I consider speech to be the greatest gift of all races. It's much better to speak your mind than to boil up inside and argue with yourself,_ he remembered Hawke saying the last night he saw her, before she lashed out irrationally at him and left his mansion.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but how about you stop squirming in silence and speak your mind?"

Aveline frowned at him. "And what will that accomplish? She's gone and there's no trace of her in all the Free Marches. I can't do anything about it now."

He sighed, "And your anger is getting the better of you. Wouldn't it be easier if you let yourself be mad at her openly?"

"And do what? Scream? Punch the table? Have her portrait painted and smash it to bits?" she asked in outrage.

"I had something else in mind," Fenris said while grinning. "But first, we should make a toast."

She looked at him in suspicion as he grabbed the bottle and he paused. "Shall I or would you like to do the honours?" he asked knightly.

"Go ahead," she said bitterly.

He punched the cork with his gauntlet and poured the champagne in the glasses. They raised the glasses as they stood up knightly. "A toast for the lost souls. Benefaris," he said chivalrously and she smirked at his language, "Cheers, Fenris."

"Tell me when you're done," Fenris said calmly. She looked at him in suspicion and nodded as to let her have another drink. When she was done he took the bottle. "Now throw it against the wall."

"What?" she asked as she frowned at him.

"Trust me," he said and grinned. "If you refuse to talk about it, at least let it out somehow. Now, proceed," he said knightly and pointed at the wall.

Aveline hesitated and looked at the wall and then at the bottle in her hands.

"I'm waiting," Fenris finished flatly and crossed his arms.

She pressed her eyes tight and in a split second the bottle was shattered into pieces on the ground with relentless force. She looked at the wall as if she were impressed by how she allowed herself to do something so unusual.

"Feeling better?" he asked a bit mockingly.

"A bit. But then it just occurred to me that I should have had another drink," she said and chuckled. "Thank you, Fenris," she said while nodding knightly.

He nodded back and she looked down as if she had just realized something. "What did you do? To get past it, I mean. I haven't seen your walls painted with wine or anything."

"Me? Why would I –"

"Don't lie to me, Fenris. If you really are as unperturbed as you make yourself appear to be, you would have made me throw a bottle sooner."

He frowned and crossed his arms. Why did he have to be good? Of course, the moment she broke her shell and felt better she becomes a perceptive and prodding woman again. "I haven't done anything particularly special."

She chuckled, "I suppose moping and talking about how much you hate mages every day is a form of displacement."

He raised an eyebrow and she continued. "It's a defence mechanism. Hawke used to talk about it. You know she was a human lie detector. It's kind of like the bottle throwing, only that lasted just a few seconds. You project your feelings onto a similar object or person so you wouldn't have to face the real thing."

"Are you suggesting I am irrationally moving my anger towards Hawke onto mages in general?" Fenris asked angrily.

She sighed, "It felt like the other way around, didn't it?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked in outrage.

"You moved your anger towards the magisters onto all mages and then onto Hawke because she welcomed it. And then the Hawke vs Fenris insufferable barking war of 9:31 Dragon began," she said and gestured sarcastically in a dramatic manner. "And now you have no choice but to go back to your previous defences."

"Preposterous," Fenris said angrily.

"Is it? You had grounds to hate Anders and Merrill, it's true, but what did Hawke do other than to be a strong mage that didn't even make use of her powers and also help you? Oh, that's right. She listened to you. She took you seriously. She had answers to the many questions you had while you were staying solemnly silent and brooding. Half the other time you argued with her. What does that tell you?" she said angrily.

"That I was wasting my time pestering her about things she didn't understand herself? How about that?" he retorted.

"So you admit you don't understand. Good," she said firmly and paused. "Say what you want, Fenris. You miss the one person who took you seriously and remained fair with you in that process," Aveline said perceptively. "I rest my case."

Fenris crossed his arms. "Good. I was wondering when you'd be finished," he said mockingly and looked at the wall. "You're welcome," he said bitterly and went for the door, but Aveline kept speaking.

"Side note: you also miss that red hair and swaying hips you used to stare at whenever she wasn't looki-"

He frowned and closed the door forcefully behind him before she finished.

* * *

**Sunset, Fenris's Mansion**

He had nothing. For one sodding day, he actually had nothing to think about and nothing to retort. The Maker or the universe or whatever pile of shit that animated the world really had a perfectly macabre sense of humour. He had really fooled himself. He was angry at her for leaving as if she was him – a former slave who flees. But he wasn't the one to flee, and that was the perfect cheery on top of the pile of bullshit, as she would say. All the more angry he was because that night probably meant something to him – they saw eye to eye and she made him speak his mind without getting into a fight. He allowed her to see him as he was, with little inhibition or distrust and he found himself to enjoy every minute of it – every word she said and every question was simply put and answered. And he only wanted her to continue, he felt the urge to ask her so many things and in turn, to tell her about his past, to strip himself bare voluntarily of all his demons.

But the moment they felt it, that they were close and they understood each other, or maybe the moment they admitted it, they both felt like raising the barrier. He couldn't even remember. What did he even say to piss her off? Ah, yes. He told her to go to sleep and make a joke about it being his house so he made the rules. Maybe he really did remind her of her father. Maybe that was what set her off. Or maybe… she just had to go back to how things were before. But even so, why she would simply flee, that had nothing to do with their conversation or their altercation. No, it was something else, something he could not understand, but that he adamantly admitted to her of wanting to.

He heard footsteps in the hallway and he reached for his sword, half-hoping, as sometimes he would do, that it was that one insane clown that ever had the guts not to knock on his door. But he was chasing after ghosts and he should have known better than to let himself affected and bathe in his own confusion.

"Woah, woah, easy, easy! It's just me," Varric shouted in terror as Fenris almost slit the air above his head.

"I thought only she had the annoying habit of walking into my house as if it were an amusement park," Fenris said angrily. "I wonder who's copying who."

"Maybe you have grown up, elf, 'cause your memory's turning into oatmeal. I told you I was coming this morning and you said I could show myself in if I'm early," Varric muttered angrily.

He did? Will wonders never cease. He must have been drunk out of his mind to suggest the dwarf could just come and go as he pleased in his house.

He rolled his eyes and gestured for Varric to come in.

"So… got any dance routine you wanna show me?" Varric asked awkwardly.

"Sadly, my ballerina days are at an end," Fenris said sarcastically and sat in armchair.

"Are you sure? We could be the next Broma Brothers. Better yet, 'FenFen and the Limbomaster: The Dynamic Duo Of The Charmingly Insufferable And Utterly Wicked', where you're the impossibly flexible elven dancer and acrobat and I'm the pretty dwarven fairy that holds the burning circle while you jump through it with a rose in your mouth, take off your hat and say 'Good night, Kirkwall and all the hot mommas!'" Varric said in amusement and starting doing his old man laugh.

"I have to get a new lock on my door," Fenris said grumpily, seeming totally unimpressed by Varric's crazy imagination.

Varric chuckled. "You know picking locks is kind of what I do for a living, I hope."

"So I am reminded. Constantly," Fenris said flatly.

"Maybe we should get a mascot, too," Varric said as he ignored the elf's grumpiness. "Like a giant clown that goes 'Pull my finger' and then farts like a constipated bronto."

"Do go on," Fenris said and drew a fake smile. "And make sure to wake me up when you're finished."

"Oh, you're no fun." Varric sighed. "I miss Hawke." He stopped and widened his eyes, as he realized he had let the words out.

"And there it is," Fenris said and grinned. "I must have woken up wearing a dress and reciting the Chant of Light this morning, because it seems you're going at a confession at long last."

"Well, you do look like a grannie, having white hair and hating and bitching at everybody," Varric said sarcastically, but then sighed and sat in the armchair next to Fenris. "Yeah. It took me that long, but I said it. And I didn't need to anyhow, it's not like it was some sort of secret."

"Admitting it is a good step, nevertheless," Fenris said firmly.

"If you say so," Varric said and looked at the fireplace. "I can't believe I even came here for this."

"You  _came_ here to tell me this?" Fenris asked bewilderedly and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, cut the crap, elf," Varric said angrily. "It's not like you're any better."

"Yes, look at me, I'm crying inside," Fenris said sarcastically. "Everywhere I go I see Hawke. I find myself walking down the street chasing after every redhead thinking it's her and screaming 'Come back to me! I swear I won't say anything bad about mages ever again!'"

"That's the longest sarcastic comment you've ever muttered, elf. Which Hawke would say is lying by telling the truth in a dramatic way."

"Evidently," he said aggressively and frowned.

"Oh. So you do admit it?"

"No. Evidently, she would say that."

"Right. You don't miss her at all. Forgive my blindness."

"I don't," Fenris said angrily.

Varric sighed, "Well, whatever, I do. And it's no fun pretending to be angry at her anymore."

"Pretending?"

"Kirkwall's not her place and she took no break in overstating it. I just thought-" he looked down "I just thought I could bring her to like it, somehow."

Fenris frowned, "Well that's a load of crap, as Hawke would say."

"Excuse me?"

"That's no reason to stay silent about it for half a year. I may not know much about friendship, but it doesn't take a genius to notice you were close."

"What's your point, elf?" Varric asked angrily.

"My point is that if it were indeed just the mere devastation that she left despite your efforts, that she ultimately didn't care for your friendship, then you would have made peace with it a long time ago. You have kept silent about it because there is nobody that can grant you a means for atonement."

"Atonement?"

"Indeed. For what happened to her brother. You feel guilty that you brought her to that pit and you exaggerate about your brother's betrayal because if he hadn't left us there, then maybe Carver would still be here. So she would still be here."

"You really put the 'anal' in psychoanalysis today, you know," Varric muttered defensively.

"It is not my fault that you constantly need to point out my being an elf or being grumpy or broody and all the other lovely adjectives you call me, all while underestimating my intelligence," Fenris said firmly.

"Son of a bitch," Varric muttered and looked the other way. "Since when am I that transparent?"

"I've had enough time to 'brood' over it," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Or it's simply a matter of like attracts like," Varric said perceptively and narrowed his eyes at him.

"How am _I_  alike?" Fenris asked in outrage.

"I don't know. But something happened that night and you're the last person who saw her. One can only assume."

"I did not do anything to her."

"Then why did she leave in the middle of the night?"

Fenris sighed, "I told her to go to sleep and she wouldn't listen. She started behaving irrationally and stormed off."

"That's it?" Varric asked in astonishment. "That can't be the whole story."

"It is what it is," Fenris said firmly.

"So you didn't…?" Varric asked awkwardly.

Fenris frowned and raised an eyebrow, "What?"

Varric gestured awkwardly, "You know."

"I don't know."

Varric sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't expect that from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fenris asked angrily.

"Oh, so you do now what I'm talking about," Varric said and narrowed his eyes.

"Enough," Fenris said sharply. "This is pointless."

Varric burst into laughter. "That's probably what  _she_  said," he said in amusement.

"Are we going to play Diamondback or are you going to show yourself out just as gracefully as you showed yourself in?" Fenris asked assertively.

"First option. Never turning down an offer to steal your money."

"So you keep saying and it never happens."

"I've been going easy on you. Thought you might break inside and cry like a sad little porcupine."

"How positively remarkable it is that I'm still awake for this," Fenris said nonchalantly and yawned.

"Cut it, elf. Deal already."

* * *

**Nighttime, Fenris's Mansion**

He remembered something. After Hawke left and they gave the huge sum of money to Leandra to buy back the estate, she asked Fenris and Varric to help with the move. One day as he was carrying one of the sacks to the bedroom which she said would be hers, whenever she'd be back, the sack ripped and there fell a hundred vellum pages full of writing. He picked up a few of them and stared at the writing that he had no idea how to read, but the calligraphy at least, he could see, started beautifully on top of the page and ended very aggressively, as if she wrote very quickly and lost patience.

Leandra got into the room and smiled, took the page out of his hands and started reading:

"The idea of "finding oneself" is so misleading and thus misled – such an idiocy. It gives the false impression that one has some sort of self-waiting to be ferreted out, when in reality, the self has to be MADE. Certainty of the spirit has been replaced by the harsh reality of politics and history. And even so, if the citizen in question wanted to listen to the impulse in his soul, he could notice that this dry and mechanical grinding of the wheels of necessity, this world's new way of being, only shows off something completely opposite. Something that is everywhere called "the way it should be". If this citizen had chosen not to lock himself in front of it, he would have apprehended the suggestions that came from the many veins of interior thought."

Fenris remained silent and tried to understand what she meant by that, but Leandra started laughing. "Oh, I know. She doesn't seem so overthinking and driven when she speaks – the most you can get out of her is probably just an intellectual joke. But when she writes she goes haywires in philosophical nonsense."

She looked warmly at another page and read again, this time a completely different kind of text.

She paused, "Wait. What's this? You tie me with questions to this rope and I can see how you attack me in silence without blinking. And yet I subdue myself to your grin. Sad fences doubt me just as much as you do. But I can't afford, I too myself detest this. To be myself a stranger, not to fight for her, not to fight for him, to harm us… to lose us. And yet we move along and you keep giving me that angry look and I can't give you an answer, because I am not prepared myself to ask the right question."

Leandra laughed, "I think this was meant for somebody. I wonder who?"

Fenris swallowed heavily and he remembered what she said to him that last night. That all while he gave her a hard time, she welcomed his questions and angry looks and she appreciated him for it. This was a rant addressed to him.

_Footsteps again_. He got up from his bed, weary of the inebriated state he was in after drinking so much with Varric and got his sword out. Varric was long gone, he would have no reason to come in the middle of the night without announcing himself from a distance at least. These were slavers.

As he opened the door and got into the hallway with his sword drawn, he turned on his markings. A man in Tevinter robes stood in front of him and cast a painful spell on him that ate his insides and his markings burned. Blood magic. He couldn't move and the mage walked towards him with the same leash Danarius used to bind him with. This was nothing if not completely ridiculous. Was it so easy? This was it?

But the moment the man got to him a sword plunged right through his chest from behind and blood came out of his mouth. As the body collapsed, there she was, with her infinite smug look on her face that reeked of annoying confidence.

"My, I really am your guardian angel."

Fenris watched her petrified as she stood there grinning at him. They began a vicious staring match for a few seconds. He dropped his sword and walked right into Hawke and pushed her aggressively into the wall.

"Where the hell have you been?" he shouted at her as she bumped into the wall.

"What a warm welcome back I'm being give. I swear I knocked this time!" she said sarcastically and appeared unaffected by Fenris who was pressing on her arms up against the wall and breathed heavily like a beast.

" _Where_ have you been?" he shouted again ferociously and pushed her harder against the wall.

"Lovely weather we're having today. Very… harsh and relentless. Maybe even a bit of acid rain is coming about?" Hawke said sarcastically in a graceful voice.

She just looked at him with her smug grin and unperturbed eyes and he knew they were going to start an assaultive staring match again. After all this time she still had to joke about it.

He lost it. He pressed her against the wall again and kissed her and she got herself out of his grip and took a hold of his maxillary and pushed him back. He growled and breathed heavily in annoyance, looking at her insistently. She gazed at him for a second as if she found something she thought was never there in his presently terrifying driven eyes. She wasn't scared of him. She took him by the shoulders and kissed him back and he grabbed her back and pushed her against him, then as if they had a mutual split second silent agreement, like they used to have at the start of any combat, he grabbed her thighs, lifted her up and pushed her against the wall again as she thrust her fingers aggressively in his hair.

"Fenris." He didn't care. Her permissions meant nothing to him. Six big fat months of nothing and she allowed it. She was there and nothing was holding him back.

"Fenris!"

A sudden different rush came about as if it slapped him and he gasped as he opened his eyes. Aveline.

"Vishante kaffas, what are you doing in my house?" he shouted at her.

"It's noon. You were supposed to show up hours ago. Get dressed now."

"No," he said flatly.

"I said – get dressed. Now," Aveline shouted commandingly and walked out of the room.

He breathed heavily and his body was trembling as he bent his knee up in bed and rested his elbow on it. For the first time ever, he couldn't afford to get up.

"Now, Fenris!"

"I heard you the first nine times," he shouted angrily.

 


	13. The Knight Of Roses

Aveline seemed particularly stressed and grumpy, along with impatient, as they paced quickly to The Hanged Man. She was muttering something about the guards and the Keep, but all he heard was a bunch of irritating noises as his head was throbbing from the hangover. They went down the stairs for Lowtown and as he tried to brush his eyes, a merchant bumped into him and excused himself. He almost tripped from the bump and flailed on his feet as the pain in his head grew harsher. But when the man apologized and moved on, his blood froze in his veins as if he saw a ghost, for he could have sworn he saw a bloody-redheaded figure disappear behind the corner.

"Fenris?" Aveline asked as she looked at him stare in the distance in his statue-like posture. "Fenris!" He seemed not to hear her and she hit him on the elbow to wake up. "What's wrong with you today?"

"There is nothing wrong with me," Fenris said flatly as he came out of his trance and walked past her.

"So you keep saying," Aveline muttered and sighed as they got into The Hanged Man.

"Ah, I see you found the elf safe and sound. Did he take on extra hours for his fits of broody pique? " Varric said as he sat at his table.

"I overslept," Fenris said flatly.

"That wasn't sleeping. That was flailing and making awfully questionable faces," Aveline said angrily.

"Oh, cut it him some slack. I got him to drink dragon's blood whisky. Guess the hangover got to you better than it did to me," Varric said in amusement as he remembered he ended up proposing to Hawke's dog in such a state.

"You made him drink the night before a serious job? And I thought Hawke was impulsive and reckless," Aveline said while sighing.

"Hey, I don't tell you how to do your job, you don't tell me how to do mine," Varric said assertively. "Nora! Be a sweetheart and bring us some of that strong hangover tea."

They took a seat at his table and waited for him to stop writing in a blank book. A minute past and it was utter silence. They both frowned at him and struck him homicidal glares.

"Varric," Aveline said angrily."Varric!"

"Shh," he said and kept writing.

"I don't have time for this," Aveline said and got up.

"You go out that door, Red, and you won't expect me to fill you in on the juicy details after the thing is over," Varric said while grinning but not even lifting his head up to look at her.

"Then start already," Aveline said aggressively. "Maker, courting a stuck-up frigid prima donna takes less time than this."

"I don't suppose you're speaking from experience," Varric said in amusement.

"Andraste's tits, Varric," she said angrily and banged the table.

"Exactly," Varric said and chuckled and Fenris couldn't help but laugh softly.

"What are you laughing at, Mr. Moans-in-his-sleep?" Aveline asked Fenris angrily.

"Oh, I'm sensing a story there," Varric said in intrigue.

"There was no moaning," Fenris said flatly.

"Forgive me. I stand corrected. It was moping with pleasure," Aveline retorted.

"Don't you have some goats to send to your frigid ladyfriends?" Fenris retaliated defensively.

"Stop it, Fenris or I'm going to mop the floor with your head," Aveline threatened him aggressively.

Fenris made a sound as if he restrained himself from laughing. "Do that and you will be terribly sorry."

"And why is that, I wonder?" Aveline asked impatiently.

"Well, you will not be able to get into the corners, to begin with," Fenris said and Varric chuckled like an old man.

Aveline frowned. "You really wanna test that theory?"

"Woah, woah, calm thy titties, Guardswoman," Varric said dramatically. "So let's talk business."

"Yes, do talk," Aveline said as she was losing her patience.

"So, as Aveline already knows, there's going to be a grand political gathering in the Keep since today is Kirkwall's Independence Day. As far as we know the Antivan prince is coming along with other political figures, as well as Fereldens and Orlesians. King Alistair might even show up."

"And this interests us why?" Fenris asked bewilderedly.

"Because there's a certain somebody we don't want in danger there," Varric said charmingly, pertaining to Leandra, who already began to mingle with the nobility in Kirkwall like a social butterly. "That and it's the perfect time and place to cause some trouble, if you catch my drift."

"Varric, no," Aveline said firmly. "I'm not going to let you set the Keep on fire or whatever wild plans your mind is cracking up."

"Madam, you wound me," Varric said sarcastically.

"I'm about to," Aveline said aggressively.

"Last time I'm repeating myself. Calm thy titties," Varric said dramatically. "We get in their party and there's bound to be some noble who'd spend coin on the last stuff we didn't sell. Isn't that what noble parties are for? Other than to have awkward one night stands with bored nobles' wives and elven servants, of course."

"Why do I have to be a part of this?" Fenris asked flatly.

"Because you're a shady handsome elf who can get lost in the crowds while keeping an eye on Hawke's mother when Aveline is too busy making stuck-up frigid lady friends."

"I didn't escape my life as a slave to play bodyguard at useless snobby noble parties," Fenris said in annoyance.

"So you're saying you wouldn't keep an eye out on Hawke's mother just because of the off-chance that people mistake you for a servant?" Varric asked perceptively.

"Well," Fenris paused. "Fine. But I will this for her, not for you."

"Of course," Varric said charmingly.

"Is that all?" Aveline asked in annoyance.

"No. There are bound to be a lot of shady characters there. Crows, for instance. I'm pretty good at spotting them. If anything's gonna happen to blow up the Keep, I'll make sure it doesn't happen. Keep an eye out for me. If I hold onto my jacket and scratch the back of my neck, that means trouble. If I hold onto my pockets and shake my head, that means we're really in deep shit and you need to come right away. Got it?"

"You really are a professional at this? What do you do anyway?" Aveline asked in suspicion.

"Heh, please," Varric said charmingly and got up. "I will see you at the Keep, Miss," he said and bowed dramatically.

"I'm Miss now? What happened to Madam?"

"There's no fun in stating the obvious. If you haven't noticed I like to embellish."

"Right. Like the time you switched documents and the barracks filled up with whores and the Rose ended up crowded with guards."

"Well, then, I think Madam  _is_ the right title for you."

Aveline sighed, "Varric."

As she walked out of the room, Varric chuckled and struck a mischievous grin.

"I'm sensing there's more to this business that is not for her to hear," Fenris said suspiciously.

"Of course there is, elf," Varric said charmingly. "What do you take me for?"

"You mean other than an odd dwarf with an obsession for controlling everything in the shadows like an evil mad rat?"

"Nope, that's about right."

"Evidently."

"Anyway. There are two more things that I need your help with when we get there. The cover-up story of guarding Leandra, while still true, was so Aveline won't get suspicious. But I also need to take care of other business."

"And what's that?"

"First order of business is getting back a certain amulet that I suspect a particularly infuriating Antivan nobleman will bring with him."

"You're stealing back a thing you sold?"

"No. I'm taking back what's been stolen from me. It was a long time ago. Last time I get involved with the Coterie on friendly terms."

"Why is the amulet so important?"

"It has a special rune inside crafted by a dwarven noble from the smith cast. I was going to sell it, but I found out last minute that it could increase aim so I thought I'd have Bianca enchanted with it. I still had it on me when I met with the Coterie to sell some other stuff. Funny thing – they like keeping their enemies closer than you think."

"So, you think a Crow stole it."

"I  _know_  a Crow stole it. At least they didn't kill me. Anyway, if my information is right - and it's always right - that certain son of a bitch is a noble going by the name of Alfonso Primavera."

Fenris couldn't help but laugh at that name. "And what's the other thing?"

"Oh, right. Well, he's also in the spirits business. I heard he's taking care of the gift offerings in the Antivan prince's name. Funny thing – I always wanted to know how Antivan Brandy tastes like."

"So you are going to steal from him."

"More like – make some justice. Like I said, my information is always right. He's not going to waste a whole caravan of expensive brandy as a gift for the Viscount. The real caravan is going to be sold to our friends in the Undercity or to some other dear friends from Orlais."

"You think he's going to make such an exchange at the Keep?"

"Of course not. That would be stupid," Varric said grinning.

Fenris raised an eyebrow. "… And that's exactly why nobody would suspect it."

"Exactly," Varric said charmingly. "We keep an eye on the wine cellar and the restricted area of the Keep's gardens and we'll get our stuff in no time."

"I hope there is more to this… like how we don't cause a gory scene right in the middle of a public area."

"Well, that's where you come in. Time to test that glowy-pickpocketing hand thing you do. My part is going to be distracting our lovely guests as you get the amulet and the key to the areas we have to get to."

"Oh? That's all? How do you think anyone will let an elf go near them who looks like – as you put it – silently screaming 'I hate you all! I was a slave'?"

"That's easy. For one, the son of a bitch swings for the same team, if you know what I mean. And two, you'll be wearing the thinnest opaque steal under the pretty dress I ordered for you."

"I hope you're joking."

"I am. Thought I'd make the next thing I'm gonna say easier on you. You'll be wearing this."

Varric got up and opened a chest. He went back to him while holding out a black waist girdle, a white shirt with dinstinct embroideries of black birds enveloped by red ivy and leaves going along the length of the sleeves. He also gave him a dark blue dress coat with the same red and black embroideries going from the sleeves up to adorn the shoulders and all the way to the back. The back specifically had a dark hawk looking like the griffon from the Ferelden flag with a few dark red feathers enveloped by black leaves and a few tiny and thorny red roses. The back ended up in a V with small thorns and roses embroided on the edges, like those tail coats esteemed knights used to wear at balls.

…And a strange looking pair of black pants.

"I shit you not, those are the legendary pantaloons that we found in your mansion. Guess I really should have trusted Hawke when she said she'd find a good use for them."

Fenris frowned at him and crossed his arms.

"Hey, cut me some slack. It's not like you'll look like a servant in them. Just look how many inside pockets this coat has. Plenty of room for daggers."

"If I wore a dress I would still not look as ridiculous as this outfit is."

"Would it make you feel better if I said this was supposed to be a gift for Hawke on her name-day?"

"You've got to be joking."

"I shit you not, elf. And don't give me that face, you know Hawke doesn't wear women's clothes. This is gonna suit you just fine."

"Oh, right. I'm wearing man's clothes that were meant for a woman. That does sound less emasculating," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Look. I'm asking you as a," Varric paused. "A friend, alright? Plus you won't be whining anymore after you get your share of the coin we make. Trust me."

Fenris rolled his eyes and took the clothes out of Varric's hands with such disgust it was as if they reeked of dead corpses and fish.

"Don't forget your boots and the thin steal plates that you'll be wearing underneath. It's as opaque as they can come. If the markings glow through that shit you can call me Mrs. Muffintop."

"I have to wear boots?"

"Well we were out of ballerina shoes. Plus, it's never late to learn how to walk like a normal person."

"I'm going to kill you when this is over."

"And I'm going to pack my shit and leave for the Anderfels when this is over."

* * *

 

**Sunset, Outside the Viscoun't Keep**

Varric was pacing backwards and forwards, waiting by at the top of the grand stairs for Fenris to show up. He was wearing a blood red shirt with dark embroideries on the collars, underneath a black formal coat and black gloves that had little crystal-looking jewels on every knuckle.

From a distance, he finally saw the white-haired ghost wearing the outfit he gave him who was walking knightly with Hawke's mother holding onto his elbow.

"Good evening, milady," Varric said charmingly and kissed Leandra's hand. "I was worried my friend wasn't showing up, but I see now that proper courtesy explains his being late."

Leandra laughed, "Oh, I was going to leave with the Comtesse but she's been held back by her daughters who started fighting some dress. Luckily, Fenris came by the mansion and as I left the Comtesse's mansion we ran into each other. He's a true gentleman," she said warmly as he nodded knightly and she took a slight blow.

"It has been my pleasure," Fenris said calmly.

Leandra proceeded to walk into the Keep. "I will see you boys inside."

"Hmph. Kissass," Varric said while coughing.

"You don't schmooze, you lose," Fenris said while smirking.

"Hey, that's my line," Varric paused. "Well, I get the point."

Varric reached into his coat and took out a rose and Fenris raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. The most reasonable explanation for this is that I'm suddenly courting a fugitive Tevinter slave dressed in finery," Varric said sarcastically. "Put this in your chest pocket and don't mention it. Ever."

"And here I was, dying to tell this story to my imaginary ghost friends," Fenris muttered sarcastically and put the rose on the right side of his coat.

**Inside the Keep**

As they walked into the throne room that was now already adorned as a grand luxurious ballroom, Fenris gazed up at the giant chandelier. It was hard for him to disengage himself from one world onto another, even stranger place. A place that for him drew more attention to his race than a man simply dressed in fine garments. The place was crawling with nobles, sitting on fine horsehair armchairs or standing and laughing along the grand royal curtains and tables filled with fine wines and imported food resting on pompous and glistening plates. The differences between nationalities were highlighted in their formal attires, but nevertheless, wonderful and shimmering. The men seemed proud and confident and the ladies were all but shying away from showing off the subtle movements of their dresses and the flaring of their mantels.

"Bonsoir, Vahrric!" an Orlesian-sounding man said as he approached them at the entrance of the room.

"Oh, A'limp, mon frer! Fancy meeting you here. I thought you swore off adventuring in the Free Marches," Varric said to the man.

"It's Olimpe and no, I never said that! I simply said that I would not fancy giving Kirkwall a visit anytime soon."

"Well, Olimpy-dingly-ding, that's bullshit and you know it," Varric said charmingly.

The handsome shady-looking brunette man chuckled, "I lie for a living, or you have forgotten?" he said charmingly, even with his bad grammar.

"My manners. Fenris – Olimpe, Olimpe- Fenris. That's enough said, trust me," Varric said shadily to the elf.

"Enchantee, mon ami. And I must say that is quite the flattering gown you are wearing," the lad said to Fenris striking a questionable grin and he suddenly felt penetrated and in serious need to flee.

"Uh, right, gowns," Varric said awkwardly and scratched his head. "Nice party. Wait, if you're here then that means…"

"It can mean whatever you want it to mean, Vahrric" the young lad said and struck a mischievous grin. "But anyway, assuming you're here to cause trouble, I suggest you put your masks now," he said, giving them two black feathery masks which they weren't sure were resembling birds or wolves or both.

"You're joking right? They still do that?" Varric asked in annoyance.

"Oh, it is a curse of my land," the lad said while sighing."Wherever my countrymen go they just have the sudden need to turn everything Orlesian. It is quite macabre, really."

"Sweet mother of cheeses, give me that," Varric said angrily and grabbed the mask forcefully from the guy's hands. Fenris couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous the the dwarf looked and he gave him the homicidal eyes. "Shut up, elf. You're putting one too."

"Is it really necessarily?"

"Yep. It's common law between gentleman that they do not let their partner in crime stand alone looking ridiculous. Now put it on."

"No."

"Elf."

"Dwarf."

"What are you two still doing here, come in!" Leandra said as they approached them. "Oh, what a wonderful mask you have there Fenris. Why don't you put it on?"

"I-," Fenris stuttered awkwardly.  _Venhedis._ He had no choice now. He put the mask on and Varric started laughing his ass off. Fenris gave him a homicidal glare and refrained from swearing in front of Hawke's mother.

"Oh look how handsome you two are! If only I could capture this moment forever!" Leandra said in awe.

"Oh, I certainly want to capture this moment forever," Varric whispered to himself sarcastically.

"Seconded," Fenris whispered back to him.

Varric gave Olimpe a look as if to start a conversation with Hawke's mother  _and nothing more_ and he complied with courtesy, distracting her so they could get lost in the crowds.

"What now?" Fenris asked Varric flatly.

"I have a 'friend' lurking in the shadows, making sure we get the signal for when our target comes. In the mean time, we just pretend to mingle."

"Marvellous," Fenris muttered sarcastically as he gazed at the ballroom and realized women were staring at him either with suspicious or with … much different, friendlier looks. He found it utterly annoying and disgusting and he prayed to the invented or existing gods that this would be over soon before somebody walked up to him and asked him about the chef or the royal bathrooms or whatever else a servant would be sought for.

"Answer no questions. Ask and you open one bud of truth for yourself after another. But give nothing. Nothing, especially concerning your origin," Varric whispered to him calmly and got lost in the crowd.

About an hour later, after Varric finally lost his patience and told the elf to stop looking after Hawke's mother as if she were a bleeding target for an army of mosquitos, Varric's 'contact' signalled him that the noble was in sight and the inevitable occurred. Fenris had to talk to that Alfonso Primavera alone. Luckily for him, the man came to him first and did almost all the talking, in-between Fenris nodding and awkwardly giving monosyllabic responses so the noble would just keep on talking about Antiva City. And second, the man was clearly into him, which as terrible and uncomfortable as it might have been, did go along with the man's attempt to get him drunk. He pretended to drink and as the man's eyes sometimes slid away to look at men or women, even, he'd switch the glasses with the empty ones on the table and continue the conversation. When the guy was drunk enough and told Fenris to escort him outside, he turned his glow on and thrust a finger near his ear which put him to sleep. Varric caught up with Fenris shortly thereafter and as luck would have it, he had the amulet.

* * *

 

**Outside the Keep's Gardens**

"What now?" Fenris asked in extreme annoyance.

"Oh, did he hit on you? Poor little uncomfortable elf, you," Varric said mockingly and got out a key from his jacket. "I've done my part. Turns out Aveline had the key. Pickpocketed right from her as she started lashing out at me for calling her Madam again."

"Then let us not waste any more time here," Fenris said angrily and they went for the gardens.

"Oh, no, no, no. You go drag this worthless son of a bitch in the cellar and then you go back to the ballroom. It raises too much suspicion and Aveline might catch on that we stole her key."

"And you're just going to swoop in there alone and steal the brandy?"

"I was going more for a shady ambush while I go 'Hasta la vista, motherfuckers!', but I think I'll just go and bullshit my way into making them think I'm the dignified customer."

"This is reckless," Fenris said flatly and sighed. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"Oh, I know I've been growing on you, elf, but you don't have to worry about me. I've got Olimpy-doodle-donkey to back me up."

"How are you so certain that he's just magically going to read your thoughts and help you?"

"Why do you think he's here?" Varric said in amusement. "Ah, the less you know the better. Now go dispose of this nuglicker before I shoot an arrow up his sodding ass."

"Fine," Fenris said angrily.

* * *

 

**Back Inside**

"Fenris, there you are! I've been looking all over for you," Leandra said as she approached him in the ballroom.

"Did you need something?" Fenris asked courteously while feeling even more self-conscious as he was without this twin-ridiculous-masked-friend there to look pleasantly ordinary.

"I wanted to say goodbye. I'm much too tired to stand another one of the Comtesse's drunken rants."

"Shall I escort you home then?"

"No! I'll be fine. I'm leaving with that group over there. We're going to resume the festivities at my house, where there's less irritating noises and more quiet for people our age. You're young, Fenris, go have fun with Varric and stay out of trouble."

"As you wish," Fenris said knightly and nodded, making way for her to leave.

He looked around the ballroom, more examining the stains of the walls than anything else, for he felt his head boiling up and screaming to get out of that place and go to sleep. He wanted to go have a sit in the farthest and darkest corner of the room, sit down at the empty table and pour himself a wine at least. It was baffling how Varric took care of so many things in such a shady way, from the mere fact that he could get them to be allowed in to the event and ending with how positively remarkable he kept his plans hidden even from his own partner in crime. For what is was worth, he trusted the dwarf to come out of it alive. At least he hoped so, for even if we didn't want to admit – Varric was right and he was growing on him, in a way.

His brooding trance in his statue-like posture was suddenly interrupted as a tipsy young noble woman tripped on her dress and bumped into him. He instinctively caught her and she apologized in a strange language. A noble-looking man, probably her husband, rushed to them and got a hold of her and he nodded courteously to Fenris for the inconveniene.

As Fenris took his eyes away from the couple, he reorientated his look forwards and suddenly time slowed down as the noises and the laughter echoed in his ears and the scenery blurred the edges of his vision, as if to draw focus in the centre of the ballroom. There were ordinary nobles walking to and fro, but as the faces walked past that place, a certain masked figure outlined itself in-between them, clearing out as it was standing immobilized and confident and looking at him.

Through that crowd that seemed to be moving in slow motion, he saw the figure lost in the sea of souls more clearly, all in-between the moving bodies, the mingling voices and the ripples of laughter. A human woman in a white shirt with black lace on her shoulders building up to a black corset ending in a long V at the back, followed by dark pants. The face – he could not fathom it out, but the hair of blood was all but unrecognizable. It was her and she was standing there atall and unperturbed with a cunning familiar grin he hated so, through the blackbird mask she wore.

A thousand swear words could have bombarded his head and crushed him if not for the impeccable silence that enveloped his ears as he began a staring match with the figure. It was like somebody had hit him square in the jaw but he did not fall or move a finger, all while suffering the pain and dizziness of the vicious suckerpunch. His legs were trembling and he could feel his heart throbbing in his chest as he felt the urge to hit himself this time for real and wake up in his bed again with Aveline shouting at him to get dressed.

But after the three attempts to pinch himself through his coat, he was aware of the brutal and searing reality that this was no dream. He made his way through the crowd for the centre of the ballroom and with each step he felt his legs tremble even more and about to crumble. For she was just standing there with her smug grin and eyeing him through the blackbird mask with her red hair now reaching at her hips, adorning her black laced white-shirted shoulders and the subtle femininity that her mannish outfit remarkably outlined in a cunning manner.

She didn't even flinch as he got up to her and with his unbearable sudden anger didn't care less for the awfully small amount of inches their faces were from each other.

"Will you honour me with this dance?" she asked him courteously seeming profoundly unperturbed and raising her arms in a subtly commanding, but graceful manner.

All with his boiling anger and throbbing, painful confusion, with the silver laughter in the crowd and the bone-hard appearance of a face he had not seen for a long time, he felt a rush bursting in his chest and he took her hand and placed the other on her hip. He watched her in silence as she let herself led by him, despite his cluelessness in their dance. He let himself animated mechanically by a curious automatism that hadn't even formed, but merely was created in that moment, as he led the dance and she kept quiet. A million questions darted in his head he wanted to scream and curse and even strike her somehow, push her away all the while wanting to just let the silent dance continue. He did not need the mask he was wearing, for he kept an austere, perfectly content appearance as she looked at him just as unaffected with her hand on his shoulder and followed his every move.

But his patience was wearing thin and he couldn't bear the silence anymore, as fascinating and natural as it seemed.

"Haw-," he said flatly but she interrupted him quickly.

"Not here," she said flatly and pressed her hand tighter on his shoulder. He looked to his right to see the Senechal dancing with Lady Elegant somewhere close.

He frowned in annoyance and quickly shoved her gently forwards and made them lose themselves in the crowd farther from the couple. She smiled at him for their telepathic mutual talent seemed not to have ceased despite the time they were apart. He pressed his hand tighter on her hip as if it was an involuntary reflex and she looked down instinctually. He rolled his eyes and pushed her down on her back. For a second, they shared a curious look, different from their previous staring contest, and he couldn't help but grin at her surprise and how she tightened her grip on him so we wouldn't let her fall. It would have been the perfect moment to just drop her there and storm off in triumph. But he didn't.


	14. Knight Trumps Queen

After she broke the dance and bowed to him knightly, rather than ladylike, she waved at him mockingly and stuck her tongue out. And again, she got lost in the crowds.

A thousand curse words were  _now_ finally coming to him and jolting his head, for this may as well have been a dream. But before he succumbed into what he could only describe as the most colossally enraged he had ever been his whole life that didn't involve his master and his apprentices, he came to his senses and went to the restricted area of the gardens. The door was still unlocked so Varric must have still been there. He knew he wasn't supposed to go there but that was the only place that he could have gone too instead of exploding, fleeing for the Anderfels or go looking for her.

He walked out to hear an old man's laughter coming from the gigantic maze nearby. He followed the sound and eventually got to the hidden caravan on top of which Varric was sitting with a much too happy face with his mask raised above his eyebrows, drinking from an expensive-looking bottle with Olimp next to him.

"Elf, come right up here, we're drinking for glory," Varric shouted and raised his bottle, "And for friends!"

He felt the words coming out  _Hawke's back,_ but seeing him so jolly and content, he decided not to. He should let Hawke have the courtesy of coming up to find him and apologize for leaving him a dwarven ghost of a man. No. She had no right to have that courtesy. But he couldn't do it. He wasn't even sure it was real. Whatever the nobles put in his drink, if they did, it really said something about the wild fantasies his head could come up with. Pathetic. Again, for the hundredth time since Hawke was gone, he felt like leaving this corrupting city.

"Shouldn't you collect the goods and get out of here as fast as you can?" Fenris asked him calmly.

"Yes, that would be the most wise way of doing things," Varric said firmly then burst into laughter. "But I'm seeing green fairies and giants right now. I don't give a shit,"

"That's from what I put in your drink earlier, Vahhric, not the brandy," Olimpie said charmingly in his Orlesian accent.

"I don't give a shit if you put a princess crown on me and ask me to marry you," Varric said in amusement. "I'm the king of the world!" he screamed and raised his hands in the air.

"Such ambition," Fenris muttered sarcastically and shook his head. "I suggest you come down and we leave for your own safety, my King," he continued.

"Nonsense, elf," Varric said and chuckled. "I'm appointing you First Advisor to the Crown! Wait no, First Broodivizor to the Porcupine King. Kinda sheds a bad light on me, but who gives a damn!"

"You, mon ami, are one fun, uh- how do you say – sonavabeetch!" Olimpe said while pointing at him.

Varric looked at his index finger pointing to him and narrowed his eyes. "And I appoint you, Olimpe, as the King's nose-picker. I summon the King's nose-picker, what's he taking so long?!"

The lad laughed and took out a handkerchief and pretended to wipe his hand, "Oh, I'm sorry, your Majesty, the Queen had a bit of a booger!" he said courteously in his Orlesian accent.

Varric burst into laughter again and drank some more brandy. That certainly wasn't the time for him to find out his best friend came back to town, if it were true.

"Varric, come down here and let us leave. Do not doubt that someone will hear you. And I'm wondering who scares you 'shitless' more – the Crows or Aveline."

"Oh, there's no question there – Aveline," Varric said in amusement.

"Don't worry, mon ami, I will keep an eye on Vahhric. I have a talent for keeping people out of trouble, as my dwarven friend here already knows."

"What  _do_ you do anyway?" Varric asked Olimpe suspiciously. "Oh, right, better not ask questions you don't want the answer to."

"C'est précisément cela!" Olimpe said gracefully. "Exactly so. Once you know you cannot unknow it, yes? And you know what that means!"

"Sorry, I got lost at seh-preshalala pou-pou," Varric said in amusement. "Or was that seh-pressippippi cooh-cooh!" he said dramatically and gestured.

The lad chuckled, "Never mind."

Varric was miserable and he needed this, Fenris suspected. This would have been the perfect scene that he and Hawke would find utmost amusing. She'd climb straight up to him and express her concern in the manner of a joke and he'd laugh warmly and assure her he knew what he was doing, all the while she would have taken care of it, in reality. And that was the Orlesian young lad for, he was a striking resemblance of the best friend he had lost and that was the reason why Varric found it comforting, behind a mask of drunken humor.

"I'm leaving," Fenris muttered flatly.

"No, elf! Stay. Come on, don't be such a sourpuss," Varric said pleadingly.

"I tried my best to be pudding but I ended up looking even more ridiculous as it is," Fenris said angrily and spat on the ground as he left and dropped his mask.

No matter how many times Varric shouted after him, he ignored all of it and left. He got into the ballroom again and looked around only for a second to see if she was still there, but she wasn't. He paced quickly through the hallways and got out of the Keep.

* * *

 

**Fenris's Mansion**

As Fenris walked rapidly and angrily towards his mansion, an inner force stopped him when he got past the Amell estate. Her mother was probably having fun herself, not in the manner Varric was, but still. He couldn't storm into the mansion and disturb her festivities to tell her he danced with a ghost. He brushed his face and felt like hitting himself, but he snapped out of it and climbed the stairs up for High Estate District.

 _Vishatta._ Now was the time he felt like he had been struck by lightning twice in the same place. The first time was when he first met her and found out she was a mage - and not just a mage, but a sarcastic insufferable and ridiculous clown mage. The second time was now, as he saw her leaning on the ivy stonewall fence where Fenris once waited for her to come help him seize the mansion. She sat down on the bench behind the ivy and waited for him to get out of his statue mode.

"If this is not a dream, I do not doubt the Maker's existence anymore and his remarkably poor sense of humor," Fenris said calmly as he approached her.

"You need better dreams," Hawke said confidently and smiled at him as she dropped her mask.

"A grave necessity, indeed," Fenris said calmly and stood like a sculpture in front of her.

"I swear on all the gods, I would never have pictured you agreeing to wear something like that," she said in amusement.

"It gets worse. This was supposed to be yours," he said flatly and got out of his boots at last.

"I know. I was the one who drew the model," she said and chuckled.

"Well now I feel even more foolish," Fenris said nonchalantly and took a seat next to her.

"Why? You look positively gorgeous," she said warmly while eyeing him insistently.

"Gorgeous?" he asked and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes and rightfully so. This was certainly meant for you rather than me."

"I highly doubt it. It has a hawk on the back."

"So? I don't care for names. Do you?"

"No."

"Then I don't see what the problem is. And the rose was certainly the piece that was missing and made all the difference. Suddenly it doesn't seem so odd now that your lucky card was the Knight of Roses. They should draw you instead and print it on the card."

Fenris pressed his eyes and refrained from bursting into anger. He got up in front of her. "After all this time you come back and all you can talk about is how 'pretty' I am in your idiotic dress?"

"Now when you say it that way it just sounds bad," she said while grinning confidently.

"It is what it is," he said flatly and looked away.

"So you admit you're pretty?" she asked in amusement.

"Enough, Hawke," he said assertively.

"But you are pretty, aren't you?" she asked again in a bit of a mocking tone.

"Stop it," he said aggressively, feeling the urge to grab her by the throat.

She leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees. "No," she said assertively while smiling.

"Yes," he said firmly and bent forwards so their eyes were on the same length, eyeing her with a homicidal glare.

She grinned, seeming perfectly unaffected and pushed him softly with a finger against his shoulder so he would back away and get out of her face.

He felt a rush and rolled his eyes. "Venhedis," he half-shouted in anger which even scared her as he saw her flinch. He assumed a vertical position in front of her again. "Six months without as much as a word and this is how you want to start your conversation?"

"What do you want me to do? Kneel at your feet and beg for forgiveness?" she asked dramatically and stretched her arms mockingly.

"You could certainly try. It wouldn't hurt," he muttered calmly.

"Am I supposed to believe that you actually missed me, Fenris?" Hawke asked in amusement while grinning to no end.

"I didn't," Fenris said flatly with a hint of bitterness.

"Then what's with the homicidal glare you're giving me?" she asked in amusement.

"Oh this? It's just the look that fits the tragedy of my situation," he said mockingly and stretched his arms to draw attention to his knightly coat.

She laughed softly and looked down as if she told herself an inside joke. "Well at least you know how it feels like to be a clown."

Fenris frowned at her and felt his fists boil and ready to be formed. "Yes. It's marvellous," he muttered in angry sarcasm. "Never has life seemed so pointless before this lovely night of wonders," he said sarcastically.

"I know, right? Brings a tear to the eyes to see you fulfil your life's goal," she said sarcastically and pretended to wipe her eyes.

"Hawke," he said aggressively. "Enough with beating around the bush."

"But if I beat right into the bush the snake might come out to bite me," she said sarcastically, reminding him of her stratagem.

"Yes, imaginary snakes are the worst, especially to lunatics like you," he said sarcastically and narrowed his eyes, trying not go straight to her and grab her by the collar.

"Like I usually say, don't go looking for snakes," she said assertively and he wondered if she referred to his calling her a viper in this very courtyard a season's distance away from a year ago.

"As luck would have it, the snake found me on its own," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"Bah. You wound me," she said mockingly.

_I'm about to, Hawke._

"Tell me where you've been," he demanded firmly.

She got up and looked at him. "I'd much rather talk about the weather. It seems particularly  _acid_ tonight," she said and grinned.

If this was not a dream, now he really wished it was, as she said almost the same thing as in his previous dream and it made him feel the same boiling rush to push her against the ivy wall as hard as he possibly could.

"Fine. I don't need this nonsense," he said bitterly and spat on the ground.

"Wait. What were you doing there anyway?" she demanded bewilderedly.

"That is none of your business," he said firmly and walked towards his mansion.

"Fair enough. What could only ask, considering," she shouted after him.

He frowned, turned around and walked back to her. "Isn't it obvious? I just have a soft spot for clown dresses and snobby drunken bloated women," he said angrily and gestured in disgust.

"That's very subtle," she said in amusement.

"What is?" he muttered angrily.

"Nothing. Never mind. I'm sorry. I'll get out of your hair," she said and proceeded to walk to the stairs.

The anger got the better of him and he grabbed her hand forcefully as she tried to walk past him.

"I can walk unaided, thank you," she said confidently and tried to get out of his grip, unsuccessfully.

"Damn it, Hawke," he half-shouted angrily and instinctively squeezed her by the wrist harder.

"If you want answers, give me answers," she said assertively, seeming unaffected.

"I was looking after your mother. Varric's inside stealing a caravan of expensive Antivan brandy. There, happy?" he said aggressively.

"You were looking after my mother?" she asked in genuine surprise.

"Is it that hard to grasp such a simple concept?" he asked irritated.

"No, I-". She paused and looked at him straight in the eyes as if she saw light for the first time. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Thank the universe she still managed to live in that empty house without screaming and going mad. And that she kept believing you would come back," he said bitterly and let go of her hand as it were nothing.

She frowned. "Of course I was going to come back."

"Of course? Was it that positively obvious? Forgive us for our remarkable stupidity."

"I didn't say that."

"You just leave a note saying it had to be done and it is just naturally implied that you're going to show up one day in a bird's mask with a smug face and – "

"I understand Varric to be this angry, but why are  _you_ acting like a woman on her period?"

"Oh, piss off," he said angrily and turned around to walk towards his mansion again.

"Tell me when you're done. I believe I owe you that explanation," she said commandingly and crossed her arms.

"I'm not interested anymore," he said bitterly without turning around too look at her anymore.

"So you're just going to leave?" she shouted.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to surpass you in that remarkable talent," he said mockingly and opened the door.

As he walked into the mansion and proceeded to smash the door shut, a counterforce blocked it. She held the door aggressively and he kicked the door shut. He felt the coat itch him and he wanted to tear it off right away.

He heard a bang behind as he climbed the stairs to his study and he saw Hawke rushing inside assaultively. Of course, she wouldn't give two spitting coppers for boundaries.

"You are going to listen to me now," Hawke shouted assertively.

"You mean, right now? Or after you spit more of your venomous nonsense in my face?" Fenris said angrily and walked into his study. He tried to push the door shut, but of course, with her fast cheetah-like pace she got in time to push the door in the other way and they started yet another forceful contest.

"Fenris, you're acting like a child," she said angrily as she counterforced the door.

"I have learned from the best," he said sarcastically and tried to push harder.

"Oh fine, punish me. We have all night," she said confidently and held on like a bull to the door.

His eyebrows lifted shortly and he struck an evil grin. An excellent point. He suddenly removed his pushing grip and in a split second the door banged to the side and she fell right on her face.

"Ouch, ow- ouch, … ouch," she muttered as she lay there on the floor. She looked up at him with an awkward smile, "Well, I guess I deserved that. Good thinking."

"There's plenty more where that came from," Fenris said flatly and crossed his arms.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare to think otherwise," Hawke stuttered as she tried to get up but remained awkwardly resting on one knee with the other drawn out.

"Why are you suddenly so driven to make me listen? I thought you didn't want to talk about it."

She sighed and rested her hand on her knee, "Because I owe you an explanation and I don't know how to start."

"You could start at the beginning, that has always proven itself effective."

"Suddenly I feel like you'd want me to remain in this awkward position while telling you the whole story."

He struck an evil grin, "Absolutely."

"You're vile, you know that?" she said as she shook her head. "Fine, I still have some sense of honour. Now where should I start."

"From the beginning. In fact, from this very room from which you stormed off that night," he demanded firmly and stretched his arms to point out the place.

"I'd much rather just skip to the reason I left the city," she said after chuckling.

Fenris sighed, "As you wish." He didn't want to know anymore, not at this moment anyway.

She looked at him as if she was suddenly giving a speech and forgot all the words. She sighed and inhaled deeply.

"When I got back home and told Mother, she instantly lost all the strength in her legs and fell to the ground crying. I think the worst part was that she didn't even have the energy to blame me anymore. She just kept weeping and I couldn't bear it. I-," she looked down, "I had no choice."

"But to leave?" he asked while raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. I packed everything I could, a part of the treasure we found, went to the Keep and took care of the papers and left Kirkwall. To look for him," she said bitterly.

"And have you found him?" he asked flatly, not even beginning to ask how ridiculous and impulsive her plan was and how she even knew where to go.

"It wasn't easy, but yes. I did. He's alive," she replied knightly. "I headed west to Wildervale, having heard it used to have a Grey Warden stronghold there, but travellers I met on the road assured me it was abandoned. So I moved even farther north and searched the free cities. Unsuccessfully. Once I reached Perivantium, I knew I went too far."

"You just happened to reach the Imperium without even knowing it?" Fenris shouted in anger.

"I moved through the woods and there were no villages in sight. Too many mountains. I didn't know where to go and until I reached that city, I had no idea where I was."

He put his hand to his head, feeling just now the striking reality that she was lucky to even be alive.

"Once I got there and sold the last of my stuff, for which I got an insane sum of coin, I have to say – the mages there really know their amulets and staffs – I went along the Imperial Highway back south. Hah, I got into so much trouble."

"You don't say," Fenris said sarcastically and crossed his arms again.

The way she stood there kneeling on the floor, looking at him with pure honesty as her rosy lips opened in a vague, wondering expression, he found curiously enchanting. He wanted to smash her, but not all that hard, of course, assuming all the while that she'd come back together again afterwards as if a beautiful vase, broken into pieces, could pull itself together again from all the tiniest shards and particles and be restored to its glory with an even finer glaze. All while he wanted to lash out on his anger, he also felt like pulling her up by the arm and throw her somewhere else, like in the dream he had. Foolish.

"As much as I like going down on one knee as if I'm asking you to marry me, can I get up now? My knee is asleep," Hawke asked awkwardly.

"Unless you're planning to go forth with the proposal, by all means. My cruelty has reached an end," Fenris said firmly and realized his feet were hurting and he had to sit down.

"I don't know, do you want me to?" she asked in amusement and grinned.

"It would certainly be my pleasure," Fenris said calmly. "To refuse you," he said and gave a small, contained grin.

"Ah, you're breaking my heart. Alas, I may never recover. Better I don't go forward with it, then," she said sarcastically and got up.

"Go on," Fenris said calmly as he sat on the bed.

"Hm. If I sit next to you, will you strike me or better yet, plunge a fist into my poor little beating heart?"

Fenris didn't notice it until now, but his heart was throbbing in his chest.

"I will try to resist the temptation," he said calmly and gestured for her to sit.

She smiled and took a seat next to him. "Oh, nice bed. How do you not feel the need to just let yourself fall back on it?"

"Hawke," he said firmly.

"Right, so, I reached Solas, half-hoping I'd bump into the Hero of Ferelden, since I remembered Anders telling me she travelled there once for their outpost. But I found no outpost, of course, and no Wardens. I did bump into someone, however."

His heart stopped. Who could she possibly bump into in the Imperium that he would also know?

"A curious group of lovely gentlemen. I did not see it at first, but they followed me all the way to Hasmal. They didn't have the right to pass the Nevarran border, so that was fun."

"Why would they follow you?"

"They were holding a drawing of you as they were roaming about the city square. I was there selling something and they saw me flinch or something, like I recognized you. So I rushed up the merchant and left quickly and they caught on to possibility that I left in fear. They're pretty good at their job, I'll give them that."

"How did they not catch you? You were alone and you must have needed to sleep at least."

"I considered fleeing danger a much more practical approach. As much as that sounds like a paradox. I didn't sleep until I reached Nevarra. I knew they couldn't cross without a proper disguise, at least. And they were too many to get in so quickly. But as luck would have it, that's how I found Carver. Of course when I found the place, for which I had to bribe a consider deal, the Wardens thought I was assaulting them or something and imprisoned me. Oh, they are so deeply paranoid. I thought the only thing to set them off was hideous smelly things, but no, a lone woman coming to their keep is certainly a sign the Blight is coming."

He chuckled, "What did you expect? A royal welcome?"

"I'd expected them to at least hear me out. Until Stroud came and recognized me I sat in their prison. I was tired and frustrated and my patience was wearing thin, so I kind of… pissed them off entirely and kept playing snarky comment matches."

He shook his head, "You are terribly out of your mind."

"I keep telling myself that hoping one day I might find reason. But I can't help it!" She smiled. "Anyway, after that awful fiasco, they brought Carver. Oh, the look on his face! He almost had a heart attack."

"I can imagine."

"Shit. He couldn't believe me. It's like I finally showed him just how much I cared about him. Like it was so unnatural and unexpected of me. Hmph," she said bitterly and shook her head. "Anyway, I stayed with him for a bit, all while they kept instructing me to make sure I wouldn't give out a word of their exact location and whatever other stuff I saw that I shouldn't have seen." He frowned at her and she drew an awkward smile. "What? I get bored."

"And the hunters?"

"Well, again, I was lucky. I kind of seriously blackmailed the Wardens into giving me a piece of their plated armour in exchange for my silence. Stroud was  _not_ happy about that," she said and chuckled and Fenris shook his head in amazement. "All equipped and good, I headed back south. Made a stop in Tantervale."

His blood froze. That was the place where he got ambushed and almost died. "Terrible place, really. There were two separate groups of hunters there, the one that were looking for me and another one who was already stationed in Tantervale. Funny story –"

"Oh, I want to hear how you got out of this one," Fenris said grumpily, masking his tension.

"Well, simply put, I made them both follow me from different directions and I kind of made them clash against each other in an abandoned den. It took them a while to realize they ambushed each other. Idiots," she said confidently, looked down and brushed her knee.

Baffling. For all her insanity, Hawke was such a spit into any slaver's face. If by any stretch of the imagination he would have decided to take her straight to Minrathous, he could swear she would manage to wipe the city clean of magisters. He wondered if she would accept his offer gladly, in all her astounding lunacy.

"Funny thing though. I think I found something that belonged to you," Hawke said warmly and reached for her pocket. "If it doesn't, you can still have it." She gave him a small black thin steel feather, belonging to the plates he once wore against his legs. "The rest is kind of ruined. The plates are still intact, but the feathers are mostly absent or broken. I left them in my pack, if you still want them."

"I don't think I have much use for them anymore," he said flatly, holding the feather that was meant to look like a genuine one. They were very useful when kicking, since the sharpness could all but poorly tickle the slavers he fought. He didn't know what to say, so he just looked down and seemed grin.

"I'm sorry, it was just stupefying that I found them and I had to take them with me. I didn't want to bring back painful memories, though," Hawke said almost whispering the last sentence.

Fenris looked at her quickly. "Thank you, Hawke. For everything," he said flatly.

"Ah, why didn't I think to start with that story? It would have saved me a lot of time and embarrassment," she said childishly, pointing at the floor where she once fell and stood on one knee as if she was pleading.

He laughed softly, "And rob me of the delight to see you make an ass out of yourself? Perish the thought."

"Well, I guess I deserved every bit of it. And more," she said calmly and bumped her shoulder childishly into his.

"You had noble reasons," Fenris said calmly and looked at the window.

"I wouldn't call them noble reasons as much as I'd rather call them obsessive and guilty thoughts," she said bitterly.

"A guilty conscience needs no accuser. Your Mother didn't have to say a word, did she?" he said perceptively, more to himself.

"I just couldn't let it be. Who knows if the Wardens would have let him send us a letter? I couldn't just allow this, since it was my fault. Yes, Fenris, in a way, I played a part. Don't give me that look."

"There was no look," Fenris said firmly.

"Sure," Hawke said narrowing her eyes. "Anyway, I couldn't … just let it be. Wonder all my life if he had survived and he was somewhere, continuing. I had to know if it killed me," she said quietly and looked down. She pressed her eyes tight and opened them quickly as if she remembered something, but Fenris didn't notice. He was enveloped by the realization that Hawke's heart was the most dedicated he had even seen. He didn't conceive of family, love or innocence, but he could see it now in her and whatever incriminating thoughts he had about her had ceased in that present moment.

Fenris's silent brooding demeanour was interrupted, as he felt Hawke only with his poor peripheral vision going at him and wrapping her arms around him. He flinched for a second and his hands would have prepared themselves for defence, but her arms were strong and quick and he couldn't feel any pain that he was expecting since he was wearing so many layers, let alone the thin plates under his garments.

"Thank you for taking care of her, Fenris," she whispered as she rested her head against him. He was about to hit himself to start breathing again, but he managed without it and the first thing he could smell was her soft hair somewhere under his chin.  _Venhedis._

"I-," he stuttered, "It was –". He swallowed heavily and felt tension boiling up inside him and his heart throbbing in his chest. "Don't … mention it." This was a dream. He was almost certain of it. A dream to offer himself a reasonable explanation for why she left and why he shouldn't hold on to his repressed anger anymore, why he wouldn't have to protest to anything she just did, including her touch. This was utterly ridiculous.

"I won't if you won't," she said in amusement. He feared she could feel his chest pumping, but she looked down and burst into laughter. "Nice pantaloons."

"Indeed," he said flatly but couldn't help laughing himself. She let him go and got up quickly.

"So I guess I should leave now. Back away slowly before you kill me for breaking at least three of your endless house and behavioural rules," she said awkwardly and pretended to back away in fear.

He chuckled, "I will make an exception. Since your lunatic brain only sees the existence of rules as an invitation to break them."

"Well," she stuttered awkwardly, "Fair enough. I will consider myself spared."

"I wouldn't suggest going to your mother now. Unless you want her to have a heart attack in front of a dozen people."

"I wasn't going there. I saw her leave with them, why do you think I was at that ballroom anyway?"

"I spared myself the pointless effort to find an explanation for  _anything_ you do, Hawke," he muttered as he drew a warm smile.

"I think that's a healthy attitude. I suggest sleeping on it before you get an aneurism, considering how much of shock I was tonight," she said in amusement and gesture dramatically.

"Where are you going?" Fenris asked bewilderedly. "You can't go to Varric either. In his state,  _he's_ going to be the likely one to get an aneurism."

"I was thinking I'd play ghost and haunt Merrill's house for fun. What else can I do until morning?"

Fenris shook his head. "Unless you want to be killed by a summoned demon, by all means, go scare the blood mage."

Hawke laughed, "Well I get bored easily."

Fenris smirked, "Subtlety is not your strong key."

"Excuse me?"

"I take it I'm boring," Fenris said firmly, drawing a self-loathing grin.

"What?" She raised an eyebrow. "No!" She shrugged one shoulder. "Boundaries, remember? Still learning," she said confidently as she stretched her arms.

"It's a bit too late for that," he said flatly and sighed. "You can stay here."

"Oh, well, good. Because I already left my pack in your cellar hours ago."

Fenris struck a colossal frown. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Juuust thinking ahead," Hawke said in amusement and walked out of the room.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Fenris's Mansion**

Once he finally got out of those ridiculous garments, Hawke came back with a bottle of Aggregio Pavali she swore she had bought on her own in Perivantium. They talked for hours about her insane adventure and he listened to her in entertainment and she told the stories. Her face got back that genuine radiance and also the steady vitality of her smile. She had, at least for the time being, resolved one the issues that was haunting her and he could see she even felt relief that he calmed down and welcomed her to talk to him.

His face was impassive. He merely studied her, she noticed, and his burning fever seemed to be dying away with every sip of wine. The flames from the fireplace shone on his face pointlessly, as he didn't need them to flatter him. She suspected he had felt like the shell in him was broken countless times that night, starting with the mere agreement to come to the ball to watch over her mother and ending with her hugging him impulsively. But he remained unperturbed and quiet, as if it never happened. Even in those fine garments, he couldn't feel warmth from them, no lasting warmth and it seemed his loneliness was worse than guilt, worse than the feeling of being damned. And she was right, though he would never admit it and she would never speak of it without his permission. She wondered how utterly terrible it must have been to live in a land, cast out from the only relentless world he knew, with nothing that bothered to love or damn him, either way, to be lost and tumbling through the world with only her and the others as his companions. She asked herself why he hadn't left the city this whole time.

But she let those thoughts go and continued to the tell him the story, as she saw him listening carefully, making subtle faces and flinches that didn't need a full expression for her to understand he was either agreeing or disagreeing. His hair, how she saw, was a bit longer and parted on one side in a knightly fashion. He had a smooth forehead without a line to it and high, rich eyebrows dark enough to give his face a clear, determined look. And when he smiled, his lips were flushed suddenly with an immediate pale colour, in contrast with the short-lived rosy blushes in his cheek, that made that full careful shape of his lips all the more visible.

"I really hope to the Maker that he finds to like it here," Hawke said quietly. "I mean, yes, he can blame me, I even invited him to do it, but nevertheless, I hope he finds a purpose there. He always wanted to be a knight and make use of what he worked so hard for."

Fenris wondered, reading between those words, if she was jealous that it wasn't her who got the taint. But the thought was quickly forgotten as she continued. "Fighting something that is graphically, concretely malignant is somehow the best purpose one could find. Not that it would be easy."

"They're the marvellous gift of the magisters," he said bitterly and rolled his eyes. "At least they are a distinguishable evil in comparison to living men."

"But they come from those very men. The taint is just a perfect materialization of their cruelty and their hunger," she said bitterly. "It just makes them, all beings, seem much better and more innocent, it makes it harder to give attention to ordinary crimes. I don't know. If the Maker exists and he did this, he's a big flaming idiot."

Fenris laughed softly, as it was amusing to see her demean the Maker without actual passion or protest, just her ordinary, calm observations. "Do you doubt that he exists?"

"I doubt that there's a point to knowing if he does or doesn't," she said assertively. "To try to know the Maker," she said, maybe pertaining to the mages who tried to conquer the Golden City, but also to the Chantry, "this can be construed as a sin of pride or a failure of imagination. But all of us know misery when we see it. I know sickness, hunger, deprivation. I try to lessen these things. It's the bulwark of my faith, I guess, a weakness, maybe. But to answer truly, I don't care for him. But I don't know if you agree."

"Why?" he asked flatly.

"When you spoke with Anders, that killing yourself was a sin in the eyes of the Maker. I don't know, first I thought it was sarcasm, but, you spoke of him in a way I'd never heard anyone else speak of him."

"I spoke of tiresome theological arguments," he said nonchalantly.

"And yet you don't question that they are irrelevant," she said confidently and gave him the bottle.

"You think so?" he asked with a short warm smile after he took a sip and gave it back to her.

She was merely looking at him, her hands clasped in front of her enveloping the bottle, and she was looking at him steadily and calmly with her large perceptive eyes.

"Yes. You know good and evil when you see it. You said you did. So do I. I devote my life to trying to do it, I think," she said as she looked down and took a sip from the bottle.

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was a dream. But it was very pleasurable merely to look at her. Her face was strong and expressive, nothing of elegant aristocratic beauty. But beauty she had in abundance. He sensed a tender brooding sensuality in her, a sensuality which she herself did not believe in or nurture, for her jokes would soon strike that away from her face. Pretty was a purely physical concept, but beautiful was rooted in the soul and now he felt at ease, with that soul in front of him. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was a dream.

The fire was dying again and they were soon about to be enveloped by utter darkness. He felt the urge to find her in the dark as the fire really died, reach for her hand so he would be sure she wouldn't disappear. And in a harrowing second, he heard her say "Boom!" and she struck a roaring fire into the pit again.

"Explain this to me again," he started knightly. "You said you had to train your powers so you wouldn't misuse them if you were forced to."

"I did? Well, if you say so, then I must have."

"Hawke," he said in annoyance.

"Oh, no, it's always this way with you," she smiled, "Ask."

"Do you hate it? That you have to do it, I mean."

She sighed, "I used to think once, that there was no place for people like me on this earth," she said. "Perhaps there was once, I don't know. The fact that we exist is no justification. Hunters drove wolves from the world. One day it will happen the same with mages. I thought that it was just a string of illusions, that we were innocent. No one believes in us. And that's how it's meant to be."

Fenris raised an eyebrow, hearing how she said those words so seemingly unaffected. "You believe it is natural that one day you will be all annihilated?"

"Perhaps we won't even get to that day. Perhaps we will just die of despair, as the worldwide collective burden of our conscience will just, I don't know, burst, say 'I've had enough!'. I mean the Circle mages and non-blood-mage apostates of course. Perhaps we will just vanish from the world very slowly, and without a sound."

He didn't understand how she would speak in such a manner of her own race.

"But I can't bear it. I can't bear to be quiet and be nothing, and to take what I can get, seeing all the creations and accomplishments that non-mages have done all around me, and not being able to be part of it. Because I am ultimately unnatural. But the world is unnatural all around us, anyway, and people fear the unnatural. They fear of the certainty that it is what it is. If it was natural, then maybe I would have had a better time as a mage, but it's not. And the Circle mages, they're cut off of those things and rightfully so, in a way, but in another, it's macabre."

He felt like bombarding her with questions, the first one probably being why she wouldn't compare her plight with the one of his own race. She didn't even speak of it. Perhaps out of respect, because she couldn't conceive of his problems. She couldn't just make a simple comparison out of mere necessity to explain herself better.

"But to answer your original question, I do hate it. But I don't hate myself. You see? That's the contradiction. I've never hated myself," she said calmly, giving him the bottle.

He took a sip without breaking his gaze on her. "Elaborate on that statement," Fenris demanded firmly, giving her the bottle again.

She didn't answer. She looked in the fireplace and took a sip of wine, then finally said, "In a way, you could say my greatest sin is that I have a wonderful time being myself. My guilt is always there; my moral abhorrence for myself is always there, but I do have a good time. As long as I don't have to use my powers, I feel normal. Somehow it's always been an insistence of mine that I deserve the right to try and be normal."

"But you always have that doubt. That there's more to you than normal."

"I'm strong. More than I want to be, I think, because of my secret reserves. And I feel great if I use them for something good. You see that's the core of the dilemma for me – how can I enjoy something that can easily make me corrupt somehow, like the magisters allow it in them? It's so easy to find the justification."

"It is, indeed," he said, remembering his speech to her in the courtyard when they met. The only reason she didn't agree with him, was because he seemed ungrateful and he lashed all his hate on her.

"How can I enjoy it if it can become evil in the blink of an eye? Ah, it's an old story. Men work it out when they go to war. They tell themselves there is a cause. Then they experience the thrill of killing, of having the power, that the earth is under their command, like they are beasts. And beasts do know it. The wolves know it." He swallowed heavily as she said the words. "They know the sheer thrill of tearing to pieces the prey. I know it. And it horrifies me."

"I know that kind of blind instinct. Terrible though it might be, it serves a purpose. I don't know exactly what, though."

"It doesn't matter. Broken people are dangerous. Dangerous as any other, but what makes them special is that they know they can survive."

He was mystified of her honesty. He thought about it and was lost for words. She could have easily just referred to him in particular and no one else, for this was his case. But she didn't. It seemed as though she was just talking about herself.

She got up and asked, "Can I just throw myself on the bed? I haven't a really felt one for … well, a long time."

"By all means," he said flatly.

She fell on the bed and seemed lost in her thoughts for a long time.

"Come, lie down," she said. "Just lie beside me, at a distance. I know it's probably impertinent of me to ask you this, but there's nothing more to it. I promise."

Fenris remained silent, his chest starting to beat harshly again.

She continued, "And also, I know this whole talk of being dangerous is kind of the worst preparation for such a demand, but I won't hurt you. Not even if I was forced to by some demon, really. I'm too sick," she gave a little laugh. "I'm not dying, though, just to be clear."

"You mean everything you say, don't you?" he asked perceptively, trying to ignore the tension that filled up inside him at her request.

"Of course," she said as she kept looking at the ceiling lying in that bed.

Fenris couldn't help but laugh softly, "You realize you are like a child, don't you?"

"I have the great simplicity of one, it's true," she said confidently in a dreamy voice. "So, will you? It's kind of hard to talk otherwise."

"I have a better idea," Fenris said firmly and got up from the armchair.


	15. My Friend, The Bitch

"And what's that?" she asked unperturbed in a weary voice.

"If you still have the strength to get up, I'll tell you."

"Are we throwing bottles against the wall again?"

"I don't know. Is there any particular reason to be angry at the moment?"

"No, but you said you take pleasure in the small things."

"There are other things I take pleasure in."

"Uh, let me try-" she tried to get up. "Nope, not going to happen. This bed is a dream."

"You need better dreams."

"Not for the horrors I've been through lately. This is a perfect cupcake of love and warmth."

"I think it's best if I just let you sleep, then."

"Why are you so vile? Here I was just a minute ago, pleading with the most reasonable and honest reasons for you to come lie next to me and now you're going to leave me hanging here awkwardly because I can't get up."

"Try harder then," Fenris said firmly and crossed his arms with a mischievous grin.

"You try harder," Hawke said childishly.

He sighed and grabbed her quickly by the wrist and pulled her up. She flailed as if she had been woken up from a thousand year sleep in a casket. "Ok. What now?"

"Now we go to the roof. If you can walk unaided, of course," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"I can, in fact," she said confidently and got out from his grip, but her walk was betraying her exhaustion.

Fenris wouldn't do the same mistake again; demand of her things she would never accept, for she would hold onto her own command more strongly than to anyone else's over her. When it came to Hawke, it seemed you were welcome to keep her company, no matter if the cheery or the angry sorts, second-guess her decisions, criticize, bark, anything, really, as long as you didn't force yourself in her face with impertinent ignorance and personal rancour.

Aveline pointed it out for him a long time ago, though he did not care to admit it. She told him that he was blind, that he didn't see that he was as equally special to Hawke as Varric and she herself was. She demanded of him to recall how Hawke never bothered to engage in a pointless argument with people who she knew were all set on demeaning and denigrating her as a means to win some debate. Better yet, she did not involve herself in any argument in which her adversary was all but ready to open himself to the possibility of doubt, or those who could not conceive of any other explanation than their own, bestowed upon them by much higher, and blinding systems of thought. She even had the perfect opportunity to state her opinion, whatever it might have been, to that Templar, Cullen, but she simply stated that this wasn't a time for debates and he didn't have to waste his time convincing her of something when the real matter at hand was what to do with the may-or-may-not-be-possessed young Templar. Cullen, who certainly wasn't a man open to possibilities, was unconsciously impressed by her or something, because he took her word that it was foolish to relieve him of duty for such a possibility. A Templar listening to a mage, even though he had not known who he was talking to, was still remarkable.

He had to admit – Hawke was something else. What he thought, at least in part, was impressive, was that she welcomed him of all people to challenge her theories. But she stated firmly that even though his aura of hate seemed ever so powerful, in truth, he was stating obvious realities and probabilities, why they should be cautious of them, all while not enforcing his beliefs on anybody.

"Then after you," he said courteously.

She drew an intentionally obvious fake smile. "You're pretty," she said sarcastically.

"If you say so," he said nonchalantly, ignoring her.

In truth, though not constructed as an evil or deceiving demeanour, as long as he gave her a sense of freedom, a certain half-illusion, for lack of a better word, that things were whatever they were and she wasn't forced into anything, Hawke was happy.

That freedom, along with her dedication, was certainly what made her so strong, but, in thought, it was also probably what could be the death of her. In the past, he thought her vision to be so reckless and her mind so depraved, that she would certainly die young. After a time, from all he could fathom of her from their jobs, she was fair and just, however, she lacked a certain key element – she was welcoming risk and disaster everywhere she went, and even he could not turn her from disaster. However, he did not turn from her either and neither did anyone else. Well, except for Isabela, but Hawke seemed clear in her intent to avoid involving her in any of her business. He noticed she didn't trust her. There was also Anders, who would sometimes seem like he would turn on her if she made any decision he would despise, but that remained to be seen.

"I take it this is your secret place?" she asked him in suspicion as they got on the roof of his mansion.

"My very house is my secret place, but yes, in a way, you could say that it is," Fenris said calmly as he crossed his arms and eyed the horizon formed by the roofs of all the buildings falling onto one another, in a way, 'til Lowtown.

"Suddenly I feel death all around me, really," she said awkwardly, looking around.

Fenris raised an eyebrow. "You stormed into the Bone Pit like it was an Antivan amusement park, yet standing on the roof of a mansion in Hightown suddenly makes you feel death all around you?"

"It's not the same. The Bone Pit was supposed to be dark and macabre. This is just supposed to be peaceful and ordinary, perfectly ordinary even. Like it welcomes you in safe hands only to make you scream and beg for death when it catches you off guard, because that's what it's waiting for."

"I agree," Fenris said firmly and looked at the moon. "It's a masked ball waiting for carnage."

"I think the tragedy of this, uh, lovely scenery gets even worse if you try to swallow it alone. Why do you come here?"

"I like the view," he said sarcastically.

"Oh, I get it. Spying on your noble laced beauties from afar," she said cunningly and crossed her arms.

He eyed at her while raising an eyebrow, but then looked away again. "I am yet to see such a one, to be honest."

"So you did look into their windows!" she said childishly.

"Curtains were invented for a reason," he said flatly.

"And boys will be boys."

He uncrossed his arms and looked at her. "Do you think me that shallow, Hawke? To lure in the shadows watching women undress or even yet, to look at such things as if I found it enchanting, for lack of a better word?

She smirked. "I don't know. As you would say, that remains to be seen."

He grinned. "I thought you might say that."

She sat on the edge and he did the same. "I have become predictable. Alert the Chantry! My impenetrable mask has been broken."

"Sometimes the Knight trumps the Queen," he said nonchalantly.

"Oh, that was subtle. You're still positively delighted that you tricked me into falling down right into my 'smug' little face."

"Interpret it as you will," he said in amusement.

"My head is overencumbered," she said as she rolled her eyes and then let herself fall on her back, watching the red velvet sky.

"As long as you there won't be any brain-spilling nearby –"

"I can't hear you!" she said childishly, subtly demanding of him to lie down.

He grinned a bit warmly, without turning to her, and felt some quiet dizzy breeze push him back. An awareness had come over him that he wasn't going to die. Loneliness in itself could not destroy him and neglect was insufficient. With that feeling, he lied down on his back and watched the dark indigo sky.

"Lie quiet and you will lapse back into peace again. Be like the Valkyries before the battle call, so still that you can hear the wool grow on the backs of sheep, and the grass grow far away in the lands where the snow melts," she recited meditatively.

She gave a soft laugh afterwards. "They were warrior spirits, all female, who were sent onto the earth to watch over the men in battle and choose who were to die, then take them to the skies. Of course, it's ancient and forgotten folklore now, before my land was even called Ferelden. But that's how I got my first name. Terrible, if you ask me."

"Hildegaard?"

"Yes. It means "fighter" or more literally "battle-encloser" or "battle stronghold". And then my father thought, 'Hey! Let's not call her a positively creepy and rare-if-ever given name, let's also give her a Tevinter-sounding name to ease up the balance. That certainly is an irony of my situation. Warrior mage. Bah, such idiocy."

"Yet it is also true, that you have lived up to that name," he said calmly, thinking about it.

"I don't know what Bianca means but I don't think my parents intentionally meant it as a reference to mages," she said and rolled her eyes. "Better yet, I think it was meant to annoy the hell out of me when I grew up."

Fenris placed his hand under his head and watched how the moon got encircled by a few flying ravens. "Do you want to know what it means?"

Hawke smirked and gave a soft laugh. "Good question. You know what it means.  _Do_ I want to know what it means?"

"It means 'she who deceives'. It was the name of the first female demon who crossed the Veil. As story tells it, she tricked a good spirit into possessing a man by giving logical arguments in relation to its nature and how it was benevolent and useful to do it. Once those spirits crossed the Veil she could finally get out in the physical world. A woman was praying in the field as she was weeping over her soldier husband's dead body. Once the Veil shifted, the demon took over her body and the good spirit remained trapped into the corpse and she left him there to rot. A few years later, she drove an entire nation into war against itself."

Hawke listened carefully to him as she widened her eyes. He told the story with complete nonchalance without looking at her, but when she remained silent and turned awfully pale, he turned his head towards her. "I'm kidding. It means 'white'."

"How could y-? Why-, what- ," Hawke stuttered and frowned. "You're awful, you know that?"

He chuckled and said, "If it makes you feel any better, your name originally meant 'the pure one' in the old language."

"Yes, I feel better already, look at me, I'm such a bulwark of chastity," she said sarcastically.

"I wouldn't know," he said nonchalantly, then looked in her eyes as if he was searching for something. "I take it you like your family name, at least," he said calmly.

"I do. It has a certain sound to it, strong and short, but not brutal. When my father got ill, he couldn't train us anymore so he had a friend who was a knight in the army resume the training instead. He was the only one who called me by the family name. Well, technically he called me 'Little Hawke', but anyway, when I got to Kirkwall, I just," she said and paused, "I felt it was worthy, for many reasons."

All the while he was fascinated, he thought quickly that she would turn the conversation in direction of his name, which could only unlock doors to the long explanation for why he did not know his real name and he couldn't afford to. So he said, "Is it different not having to run all the time?"

"Shouldn't I ask you the same thing?"

"I asked you first."

"Oh, fine. Be that way," she said and sighed. She looked a bit and searched the sky, then finally said, "We didn't run all the time. Not when we got to Lothering, anyway. But this place," she said and looked at the buildings afar, "I feel trapped."

"With all the Templars here, I don't blame you," Fenris said flatly and gazed at the Chantry.

"It's not just that. There are many reasons. One for instance is that this place is a pathetic example through which you could define the term 'free city'. They still keep the statues of slaves and the metal spikes on the streets as if they should be preserved for their historic relevance or something. It disgusts me."

He watched her in silence, for he agreed with her completely and she continued, "Then there's the whole point of being just a city. I used to dream that I could join the army, fight to the best of my ability for something worthwhile, but, this guard thing – heh, I have done a much better job guarding this city than they ever did and Aveline knows that, though she would never dare to admit it."

She gazed at him bitterly and and finished her speech, "I don't expect my faith to make a particle of difference to you, by the way. What I told you back inside, I mean," she said. "But I wanted to emphasize these feelings, because this mumbo jumbo, this matter of spirits and power, is indeed a dangerous thing. I'd be a fool to deny that."

He was impressed, but didn't show it. He was perturbed, to say the least, of how incredibly vigilant and honest she was. But hardly frightened, though he would never admit that he once was. But her speech, the army, the protection, the danger, it suddenly struck him.

Then Fenris's eyes widened shortly with a small lift to his eyebrows, "You didn't come peacefully to the Wardens. You wanted them to assume you were dangerous and attack you, didn't you?"

He saw the corner of her lips flinch and she didn't say anything. She sighed and said, "I sense a ground-breaking theory coming about."

He ignored her sarcasm and continued, "You wanted them to see how skilled you were in hopes that they might recruit you. And when they imprisoned you, you kept a perfect mask so they would see that you could resist under pressure without divulging secrets. Stroud knowing about you already was also a perfect advantage, knowing you survived in the Deep Roads for a month without contracting the taint."

"What's your question, Quickwit McSmartypants?" she asked in annoyance.

"Well, what happened? Did they want to recruit you?"

A grim look enveloped her face and she looked away. "It doesn't matter."

He frowned and looked away, too. "I see."

She got up but remained sitting on the edge and looked into the distance. Her presently longer hair shielded her back like a waterfall of thick, soft blood vessels, with only a few beautiful stubborn curls here and there, smiling at him as if they invited him tauntingly to rise from his back and touch them. He killed the thought furiously in his mind as if he stabbed it repeatedly with a knife.

"It must have been hard for you to go to that ball," she said calmly.

"Of course. Being near so many wonderfully dressed aristocratic beauties, but still so far away and forbidden. It was maddening," he said sarcastically, deflecting from the real reason she was aiming for, "And look who I ended up with – a shady dwarf who started seeing green fairies and none other than Miss Priscilla Tuffpants, dressed more like a man than I was."

She laughed hard. "When you put it that way, it sounds way worse than it is."

"I doubt it," he said firmly.

"Oh, come on. I've spent enough time arguing with you to know when you are stating facts and when you make wild exaggerations." He looked at her, still lying on his back and raised an eyebrow. She continued, "That was a perfectly manly suit and you looked positively handsome. There's no denying that. But you just have to keep it all on the negative."

"Well,  _that's_ a wild exaggeration. I don't always do that," he said in annoyance.

"'Very frequently' and 'always' are not far away from each other, Fenris. Even this," she said and gestured towards the house and the roof. "When I met you, apart from the sense of having dreadful anger and an unreasonable hate towards mages, I also saw you as rather like a creature of books than a man of the sword. You had a rich vocabulary and courteous manners, you calculated your words and even in combat, every swing and slash was carefully constructed and done."

"I'm sensing a ground-breaking theory coming about," he imitated her sarcastically.

"Despite those things, you still stay in a house which is falling apart. It's not the house itself which is the problem; that's just a perfectly practical form of shelter, but the mess inside is. It looks like a dungeon or a prison."

He remained silent, trying not to swallow heavily as he felt tension and his barrier going up. But she continued, "And your armour – you keep wearing the armour your master made for you, when you could have easily bought a much better one with all the money you've made from the expedition and without having to pay taxes since you're no more than a 'borrower' of this lovely place. Don't tell me you're just wearing it for aesthetic reasons."

He shrugged in defence, "Well, the spikes  _do_ make my shoulders seem broader."

She chuckled, "Fine. Credits for honesty. But you're not getting out of this," she said firmly.

"What's your point, Hawke?" he asked aggressively as he rose his back up to meet her eyes.

She gave him a firm, bone-hard look. "You keep punishing yourself."

 _Well look who's putting the 'anal' in psychoanalysis now, Varric. Bah,_ he thought. He did not think about it, but he couldn't contradict her either. Not with a reasonable counterargument, anyway. He felt angry and penetrated, nevertheless; his defences had risen again and he wanted to get up and tell her to go.

She looked away and frowned and her head tilted downwards with a sigh. "And I blame the wine and I will deny it firmly if I am ever going to be asked about it in the future, but, you have kinda grown on me a bit."

From all the wonders that were never ceasing to exist, this he did not expect coming from her mouth. A sudden rush of delight came about him, but it quickly vanished as he swallowed heavily under her commanding eyes that were now directed at him and she continued, "I don't know," she said and looked down, "it just bugs me," she said in annoyance, but turned her eyes onto him again, "to see you like this."

"I do not want your pity," Fenris said defensively without looking at her.

She frowned and got a hold of his shoulder angrily, turning him to face her. He instinctively grabbed her hand to defend himself, but her strong grip remained unaffected and they locked eyes in an angry staring match. "I just told you I cared about you, you moron. If you want to bark at someone for the slight chance that they feel sorry for you, go haunt some kitten orphanage, because  _I_ surely don't see you as a pitiful and fragile sad little puppy."

What a sublime voice; what an honest voice. There was something patient and tender in it, when she said it, despite the aggressiveness. He gazed upon her in surprise and silence, but she was waiting for an answer. He had to pull himself together. Her fiercely angry and firm statement however, and her eyes only a few inches away from his now, those honest and determined eyes, made him want to take her hand and place it behind his neck while with the other to take a hold of her face and bring her lips to his. What she saw, in turn, was a small lift to his eyebrows and a piercing, but confused look, as it he either was searching for something or realized something. And she could have sworn he seemed to come nearer, the whole sky flickering behind him, his figure narrowing and growing darker.

Before either of them actually made any sudden movements, however, an arrow flew right between their faces and landed quickly into the centre of the Kirkwall flag that was hanging on the roof of the building next to them. They looked quickly behind to see Varric on top of the Chantry nearby, looking grim and particularly enraged.

"Shit," she said as she got up and screamed, "Stay right where you are, Varric, I'm coming for you!"

"Save it, Pantaloons," Varric shouted from the other building and disappeared.

"Maker's purple sodding testicles, I'm screwed," she said in annoyance and turned back to face Fenris.

"I thin-, don't worr-," Fenris stuttered and sighed. "I can't sugarcoat this. He's going to kill you."

"That bad, huh?" she said sarcastically.

"It's been a surprise to us all, but, he's been remarkably miserable," he said calmly.

"It's not too late to pack for the Anderfels, is it? I think I have enough time before dawn cracks in, yes?" she said awkwardly and started to pace backwards and forwards.

"Hawke," he said flatly, watching her pace anxiously.

"I've always wanted to see Weisshaupt and smoke their fine cigars. Gotta scratch that off my bucket list soon, why not go now? You only live once," she said anxiously.

"Hawke," Fenris shouted and she flinched and looked at him, stopping her pace. "Just go talk to him like you did with me. If you've done it once you can do it again," he said angrily and rolled his eyes.

"It's not the same thing. With you, it's easier," she said firmly.

"How so?" he asked in confusion.

"Because, while we're friends, it is still assumed that you are angry and homicidal towards me anyway. Picture Varric, who has always been nice, having this attitude now."

"Sorry, I got lost at the 'we're friends' part," Fenris said flatly while raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

She frowned, "Oh, grow up. We  _are_ friends," she muttered angrily and walked towards the ladder.

* * *

 

**Almost Sunrise, The Hanged Man**

Varric's door was locked and was receiving a very lovely abundance of desperate banging.

"Varric, please open the door," Hawke pleaded, but there was no sound coming from his room. "Varric," she shouted again almost seeming she was going to cry. "I can't make up for the time I was gone, but I can say at least this: it has been tiresome, shitty and utterly boring without you."

There was still no sound coming from his room.

"Look, I'll even agree to be your personal maid and waitress. Anything," she said desperately.

"There a slight chance he's not even in there," Fenris said calmly as he watched her struggle.

"What else can I do?" she asked angrily. "Look for him in every dark corner and pit of Kirkwall?"

Fenris laughed softly, "That's what he did when you were gone. I'm not even exaggerating."

"That's not helping," she said and walked back to the bar. She tried to reason with Coriff, but he repeatedly said he wasn't going to give her the key to his room even if she bribed him.

"Hawke," Fenris said flatly to break in her trance. "Hawke!"

"What?!" she shouted angrily, coming back from her trains of thought.

He couldn't believe he was going to say this, but it might be an effective way of cooling her off. "Maybe you should sit down first, clear your head, so you could actually have a way to properly think this through, or as Varric would say," he cleared his throat, coughed knightly and said it with the most neutral, flat and serious voice,"Calm thy titties."

She looked at him in outrage, frowns going in for kill, but then quickly burst into laughter. She had to sit down to get a hold of herself. "That was gold, and you saying it, just-" she gestured dramatically that her head was going to blow, "just wow."

He grinned shortly and took a seat in front of her at the table, "I think I'm spending too much time with him."

"Don't tell me you're the best pals now or something," she said in suspicion.

"Why? Are you jealous?" he asked in amusement and gave away a dark grin.

"Oh, piss off," she said angrily.

He laughed shortly, "And I got my answer."

"Well then, Fenris, where do you think your boyfriend might be hiding at?" she asked mockingly.

He ignored her and thought about it. "He was with an Orlesian assassin, thief, noble…something," he said, trying to calculate it out. "So anywhere, really."

She widened her eyes as if she realized something and got up. "The Blooming Rose."

He got up as well and looked bewildered. "Why would –"

"He knows it's a place I hate, which an Orlessian assassin-something might love and also he thinks I'm a bitch, and bitch goes to whore and whore goes to The Blooming Rose and –" she stopped as she saw Fenris raising both of his eyebrows, "It's a long explanation, lots of connections, you really don't wanna get in my head."

"You can say that again," he said sarcastically.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, The Blooming Rose**

As they entered, they ran into a black-haired elf in the hallway who seemed to have recognized her straight away.

"Well, well, well, I knew you were all bullshit when you said you'd never come in here again," the elf said cunningly.

"I also said I had a dragon tattoo on my shoulder and one so not on my shoulder. I lie a lot," Hawke said firmly and sighed, "Anyway, can you spare me a moment of your busy time? I need some help."

"Well, that depends. Are you both coming in or just you?" the elf said provocatively and sized Fenris up as if he was stripping him with his eyes.

"Both. Wait, no-", she said in outrage and raised her palm as a barrier, "I mean I need you to tell me honestly if Varric is hiding in here. Or if you saw an Orlesian-sounding, shady-looking assassin-thief-something," she said mockingly and looked at Fenris.

The elf caressed his maxillary and grinned, "You know I can't divulge that."

Hawke frowned and took him by the wrist, dragging him away from the entrance to the main room so nobody would see them. She whispered, "Come on, Dory, I know I've given you quite the scratches and bruises, but can't you help out an old friend?" she asked pleadingly.

"Oh, fine, but stop calling me that. You know it makes me feel like I'm shorter than you," the elf said warmly.

"Fine," she said mockingly. "Please, Ser Dorian, grant this poor little maiden your help without any equal."

"Aaand?" the elf asked her teasingly.

She rolled her eyes and said grumpily, "And you're the best at what you do, the Maker gifted you with the firmest and softest hands in Thedas, blah, blah, HELP ME ALREADY."

"So mean and aggressive," the elf said and grinned. "I missed that."

"I'll come back. Just, help me already," she said impatiently.

"Ok. Wait here," the elf said calmly. "Turn your backs and just pretend to be out of the crowd if anyone sees you," he said, then looked at Fenris, "and after we're done don't forget to introduce me to your handsome friend." Fenris struck at him a homicidal frown and clenched his fists."-that seems either about to kill me or make proper use of me without paying. I think I'm just gonna go now."

Hawke leaned on the wall and laughed softly at Fenris. "I was wrong. You're really not cut out to be of this profession."

Fenris looked at her grumpily and said, "You don't say."

His fists were still clenched, in a boiling anger towards the ridiculous scene he had just witnessed. Maybe Hawke wasn't bullshitting that first night in the courtyard. The more he got to know her, to unwrap the shields she had been raising up to protect the enchanting deepness of her psyche, the more he couldn't picture her frequenting whores for pleasure. So the more he got to know her, the less he actually knew about her, as it seemed. He felt foolish and angry and in fierce need to storm out of the place, although why, he didn't know.

The elf got back rather quickly with his seductive grins on her and said, "You're about to owe me big time, love."

"He's here, isn't he?" she asked impatiently.

"Now, now, do I get a kiss first?" the elf asked playfully.

Hawke frowned, "Don't push it."

"Ah, I had to try. Seems nothing can convince you to do it," the elf said. "You're such a tease."

"Dorian, I'm this close to strangling you if you don't cut it and tell me," Hawke said aggressively.

The elf chuckled,"So, just what you did last time? Why should that scare me, love?" he said and sighed, "He's in what of the back rooms. Go from this hall to the left then at the third go take right. And we didn't have this conversation," the elf finished.

"Thanks," Hawke said flatly and quickly stormed off.

"You know where to find me, love!" they heard the elf shout from afar.

Once they got there the door was locked. Hawke looked at Fenris as if asking him telepathically if it was alright to do what she was about to do and he shrugged in acceptance. She kicked the door open strongly to see the Orlesian lad getting a lap dance from a redhead and Varric sitting in a giant armchair smoking a cigar and reading something farther in the room.

"Let me guess," Varric said grumpily. "You guessed what name I called you in my head."

"Oh, it was a long shot. First I thought of 'betrayer' and 'painted shrew', but no, you were damn clear from the start. My mistake," she said sarcastically and smiled at him.

"Yep. You give yourself too much credit, missy," Varric said nonchalantly and kept pretending to read.

"This must be the legendary friend you've told me about, Vahhric," Olimpe said as he winked at the redhead to go.

"I bet there was 'bitch' and 'scoundrel' somewhere in that sentence when he told you," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Well, I will not kiss and tell," Olimpe said in amusement. "Enchantee," he said courteously as he got up. "Unless I get to kiss your hand."

"I bet you wanna kiss her somewhere far souther than that," Varric said grumpily.

 _He might even get to. Apparently any seductive talking man gets into that territory,_ Fenris thought in annoyance.

"He can kiss my fist if gets any closer," Hawke said aggressively and approached Varric.

She got down on her knee and tried to put her hand over his but he quickly moved it away. "The same applies to you, Pantaloons."

"I think you'd rather I kiss your feet and beg for forgiveness, but oh well," she said sarcastically.

"That'd be a good start, come to think of it," Varric said grumpily, but then a sorrowful, guilty look went across his face. "But I'm not that cruel. Wouldn't want you to make you feel like you're genuinely the name I called you in our telepathic exchange of thoughts."

"I had to get down on one knee and explain everything to Fenris," she said and smiled. "Pride and dignity are not my strong factors today."

"Oh, poor Hawke. Did you think that act was gonna melt him up like a cupcake and he'd go 'Don't say another word. I want you to have my babies and live happy ever after'?" Varric asked mockingly. "Well, who am I kidding, it certainly looked that way on the roof."

"Oh, cut the bullshit. I can't have another friend besides you? You're just being mean and jealous," Hawke said mockingly.

"You have friends," Varric said and leaned forwards, placing his arms on his knees. "And you certainly know how to screw them over."

"I did," she said firmly. "But please, here me out."

As she tried to reason with him, Olimpe was giving strange looks to Fenris. His mind was blowing up as this place was revolting and disgusting and he already had this fair and enough share of men sizing him up and trying to seduce him that day. And while he liked the idea that Hawke was the only being in pants who, despite getting the closest to him that night, didn't try anything sexual on him, now it seemed even more repulsive anyhow, as he could fathom out she appreciated the hard-working men of this revolting place.

"I suggest keeping your distance," Fenris said firmly to Olimpe.

"You're not that pretty as you think you are anyway, Monsieur," Olimpe stung back nonchalantly and crossed his arms.

"Please let me explain," Hawke tried again, but Varric kept cutting her off.

Fenris sighed and said, "I'm going to regret getting involved in this, but listen to her."

"I bet there's a perfectly reasonable lie that will make her seem like an angel," Varric said angrily and crossed his arms and leaned back in the armchair.

"There is. I mean, if it was a lie," Hawke said awkwardly. "I went to look for Carver, alright?"

Varric's face flinched in surprise and he frowned, "Did you find him?"

"Yes. He's fine. But you're not, so, from the bottom of my heart, Varric, please forgive me for the way I left," Hawke said in pure honesty.

"You scared the crap out of me and I spent half a year having people searching for you in all the free cities and in a part of Ferelden," Varric said and put his on his forehead. "Do you have any idea how worried I was, Hawke?"

"I'm sorry, I really am," she said pleadingly. Her sorrow was terrible. "I am… inexperienced in the friendship thing. And I thought-," she said and paused bitterly. "I thought if anything were to happen to me on the road, it would have been best for everyone to just give up on me."

Varric shook his head, "You're a crazy bitch, you know that?"

She laughed softly, "Even crazier when I don't have you there to make me come to my senses."

"That's me. Well,  _was_  me. I was useful that way," Varric said charmingly.

"I was scared shitless that you would never forgive me. Just spit in my face and say 'Too little, too late. Hasta la vista, bitch!'," she said while gesturing dramatically.

"She's telling the truth. She made quite the moving love declaration to your door half an hour ago," Fenris said nonchalantly.

Varric chuckled, "Oh, is that so? What did she say?"

"Oh, no, no, no. If you tell him you're dead," Hawke said aggressively to Fenris.

He grinned and crossed his arms, "She said she couldn't live in a world without you, having pleasured herself at the thought of you all the time on the road and she couldn't wait to have your babies when she got back," Fenris said dramatically.

"Nice way to save your ass through semantincs, Fenris," Hawke said angrily, then looked back at Varric. "What he means is that I really did miss you and while I may not know how to be a proper friend, I hope we still are," she said with a sad face. "Are we?"

"Well,-"Varric looked at her unaffected, a sombre, austere, unimpressed statue for a few seconds too long and he could see her about to freak out at his hesitation. He then cracked up, "I was just shitting you, you had to see the look on your face."

"Smooth," Hawke said grumpily as she frowned.

"Hey, you deserved it," Varric said firmly, but then smiled warmly.

"Did you really have me searched for in all the free cities?"

"You know I couldn't just let my second favourite Bianca get away."

"Smooth," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"If I weren't sobering up already, I'd have certainly cried right now. You always know what to say," Hawke said warmly. "Can we get out of here now?"

Varric struck a fierce grin, intertwined the fingers of his hands and leaned back in the armchair, "Not so fast. How old are you again, Hawke?"

She raised an eyebrow and decided to overlook the lack of sense from his sudden question, which only pointed out an evil agenda. "Twenty-one, why? Are you trying to make me sign up for the profession?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Varric said cunningly. "You'll wish that you could do something that fancy compared to the twenty-one punishments I'm giving you for being such a crazy bitch."

"Is this a Kirkwall name-day thing I don't know about?" she asked awkwardly.

"It's a Varric-thing I just made up now. You have a problem with that, Chuckles?" he asked and grinned.

"Oh, no," she said calmly, "just preparing my funeral in my head, that's all."

"Smart girl," Varric said charmingly and intertwined his hands in an evil way again in front of his face. "Let the games begin."


	16. Varric's 21 Punishments I

"First order of business – oops, sorry, old habits," Varric said and coughed. "First  _punishment,_ which I humbly and with most and utter ill-intention bestow upon you, my little puppet, is that you shall, as of today, and until my lion heart desires, call yourself and respond only to the name of 'Morganna Pigfat'.

"You've got to be shitting me," Hawke said while crossing her arms.

Varric raised an eyebrow and took a long drag out of his cigar without removing his eyes from her. "Do you prefer Porkchop instead? Dungworth? Paw-Paw?"

"How about something more realistic and insulting at the same time?" Hawke asked as she squeezed angrily on her crossed arms.

"Butthurt then," Varric said in amusement.

"How am I butthurt?" she asked defensively.

"If I may intervene, she did mutter once the word 'asschabs' as a reference to having pain up one's behind," Fenris said nonchalantly, trying not to laugh.

"Wrong," she said childishly. "It's a reference to having your butt fall asleep."

"Morganna Asschabs. I like it," Varric said cunningly.

"You -?" Hawke stuttered in outrage. "You're gonna listen to him?"

"He's been my partner in crime since you left," Varric said charmingly. "Gotta listen to my pal. In fact, I'm going to grant him the right to give you one punishment as well."

"You-", Hawke said in anger. "You-", she stuttered. "Fine," she said and rolled her eyes. "I am from now on Morganna Asschabs." She heard Fenris laugh behind her.

She gave him a homicidal look. "What are you laughing at, Grumpus Maximus?"

"Beware of your language, Morganna," Fenris said sarcastically, trying not to smirk too much.

"Oh, what? I'm a bad girl and you're going to punish me?" Hawke asked mockingly, narrowing her eyes.

"Precisely," he said flatly, holding onto his smirk and crossing his arms.

Hawke sighed, "Just tell my Mother I love her. And I want my ashes scattered in Ferelden, anywhere but the Wilds."

"Wilds it is then," Varric said in amusement.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, The Hanged Man**

When Varric helped Leandra with the move, he found all sorts of Hawke's stuff that were embarrassing and particularly useful for blackmail, but he kept it all secret and whenever somebody asked he'd just say "Heh, please." But for everybody's amusement, he brought a piece of material which had flowers, a rainbow and newly added by him, the minimalistic large icon of a dragon… which was pink. When Hawke blackmailed the Wardens into giving her armour, she was proud to present her dark outfit, a robe of sorts on top of which the actual plates would go on. The outfit had a large piece of chainmal sewed on the whole torso with the seal of the Griffon in the centre. She had to saw Varric's material on top of it and she wasn't allowed to wear her chest plate over it most of the time. To make matters worse, he gave her a pair of red boots and a reddish scarf that itched like hell. Somehow, Fenris calling her a clown for so long had managed to make the metaphor materialize in the most graphic way possible.

She came into the Hanged Man early, even though Varric told her to come in the afternoon for their other orders of business, whatever that meant. Fenris was there sitting alone at their usual table and after she ordered a drink, she approached him and sat down at the table, scratching her neck to no end.

Fenris looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "You're still wearing that when he's not around? You know you can dispatch it anytime, I assume?"

"Yes," Hawke said determined.

"You're an idiot," Fenris said flatly, shaking his head.

"It's called proving a point," Hawke said confidently.

"Is the point that you're an idiot?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

"I think I'm taking my original misconception of you for granted," Hawke said and smiled.

"That I have a way with words without any equal?" Fenris asked nonchalantly.

"No. That you knew how to shut up. I cherish that misconception now," Hawke said meanly.

Fenris snorted in amusement, "And I cherish my original correct conception of you," Fenris said warmly and leaned forward closer to her face and looked at her outfit. "Clown mage."

Hawke frowned, "Very funny," she said grumpily.

"If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, Hawke, I would be happy to do it for you," Fenris said in amusement.

"Please forgive my following love declaration, which believe me, I mean in the nicest and most honest way possible," she said warmly and leaned forward on the table closer to his face. "I worship the ground you walk away from."

"Ah, and here I thought you were going to try to ask me to marry you again," Fenris said nonchalantly, without even blinking.

"Oh, that's a great idea. There's so much love here. Curable by marriage," Hawke said sarcastically.

"So you do have love for me," Fenris said in amusement. "Good to know."

"Yes, I feel miserable without you; it's almost like having you here," she said sarcastically.

"Can I give you a piece of advice, Morganna?" Fenris asked nonchalantly.

"Is it that I should appreciate only what you can provide me? As in your absence, of course," Hawke said firmly.

"No. My advice is that you should stop with the senseless bickering and do something productive this morning," Fenris said flatly.

"Any suggestions that don't start with 'You should juggle…'?" Hawke asked nonchalantly.

"Stop being yourself?" Fenris said sarcastically.

"You wound me, Fenris. I thought your opinions of me have changed," she said, pretending to be feel insulted.

"My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right," Fenris said sarcastically.

"King of Semantics. I've always wanted friends that were shorter than me, but now I realize I probably should have been more specific," she said sarcastically and sighed.

"I'm not shorter than you," Fenris muttered with homicidal eyes.

"Technically, you are, since I wear boots and you don't. See, I can play with semantics, too," Hawke said mockingly.

"So, Miss Lack-of-muscles, have you grown into your armour yet?" he asked sarcastically.

"Oh, 'cause you're so hunky. Such a modest  _little_  person," she said warmly, "with much to be modest about," she finished a bit irritated.

"Well, I am a self-made man," Fenris said confidently, "And I worship my creator."

"I thought elves worshipped nature," Hawke said bewilderedly. "Do you, Fenris? I hope to see you frolicking one day."

"I do love nature. Especially for what it did to you," he stung back.

"Somehow the friendship thing made our conversations change very little," she said and sighed.

"Oh, but we haven't even started to talk about mages. You should give me credit for that."

"I should," Hawke said and smiled. "But I don't want to. I'm feeling less charitable these days."

"I'm sorry, I really can't take you seriously in that outfit," Fenris said flatly.

"I heard it's called a handicap," she said sarcastically.

"I heard it's called an affront to one's intelligence. I stand corrected," Fenris said sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, do you need help getting that sword out from your ass? It looks like you've kept in there forever."

"No, it's quite comfortable, thank you."

"Now kiss," Varric said mockingly as he came to the table.

"Forgive my friend here, he's feeling a bit grumpy today," Hawke said sarcastically.

"And water's a bit wet," Varric said sarcastically. "Anyway, what are you doing here early? You know, apart from trying to make each other's brains explode with your minds?"

"I thought I'd get a bit drunk before going to see Aveline," Hawke said calmly. "You didn't tell her I'm back, right?"

"Oh, no," Varric said in amusement. "Wouldn't want to spoil the fireworks."

"And you don't think she's going to tackle you too, for not telling her?"

"I'll have my human shield with me. It's called Morganna Asschabs," Varric said and chuckled.

"Somehow I think I'd much rather be better strangers with you two," Hawke said sarcastically and frowned. "Ganging up on me is no fun."

"I beg to differ," Varric said in amusement.

"Seconded," Fenris said flatly.

* * *

 

**To The Keep**

"Wait here," Varric said. "I'll check with the guards to see if she's here."

"Or we can just go," Hawke said awkwardly. "I'm already late to an appointment."

 _Oh, I wonder what sort of appointment that is. The awfully horizontal kind, no doubt,_ Fenris thought grumpily to himself.

Hawke leaned on the wall and struck him a colossal frown.

"Is there something you want, Fenris?" she said angrily.

"There has been something on my mind, yes," he said flatly.

"Well, that's an overstatement," she said sarcastically.

"Do you want to know or not?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Sure. Ask," Hawke said warmly and he hesitated. She noticed and continued, "Form your question carefully. Just as a heads-up, the answer will still be 'kiss my ass'."

"Charming," he muttered and decided not to ask her anymore. She could go to her whore whenever she wanted to. There was no use to involve himself in her business.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound sarcastic," Hawke said. "It was a perfectly genuine and serious statement."

"No, it just seems that's where your tone of voice automatically goes, regardless," he said angrily and decided to cut the conversation short.

Varric came back rather quickly.

"Surprise, surprise, she's in there," Hawke said sarcastically.

"I don't know why I bothered to check in advance," Varric said while sighing. "Alright, time for the slaughter. Ready, Pantaloons?"

She didn't answer.

"Asschabs," Varric said charmingly.

"Yes, it seems like this is not going to be a day of routine dismemberments and monumentally stupid decisions we usually make," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Good girl," Varric said, pertaining to her keeping her word to respond only to the newly assigned name he gave her. "Now let's go."

They reached her door and Hawke stopped hesitantly.

"Haw-, Asschabs, come on," Varric said charmingly. "She won't bite. Much."

"No," Hawke said pleadingly. "I don't want to."

"Nice try, Pantaloons, but you're not gonna trick me into making this one of the punishments," Varric said cunningly.

"It's just – ugh, I don't know. Why is this so hard?" she asked bewilderedly.

Varric sighed and decided to put a hold on the sarcasm and insults. "Look, you've got nothing to worry about. In all seriousness, she's probably just going to gasp and hug you or something. And make you solemnly swear not to flee ever again or she's going to beat the crap out of you. There's no question there. And you ought to pledge that oath, if you know what's good for you."

"She doesn't scare me," Hawke said while crossing her arms, but then realized just how contradicting that sounded. "Well, she doesn't scare me with a sword, to be more specific."

"Beter never than late," Varric said sarcastically. "Now come on."

* * *

 

**Aveline's Office**

As soon as Hawke opened the door and put a giant awkward fake smile on her face, Aveline rushed to her and punched her with a ferocious blow.

Hawke remained on the floor and cupped her maxillary in pain, "I missed you, too, Aveline."

"Where the hell have you been?" Aveline shouted.

Hawke tried to get up, but Aveline pushed her with her foot back on the floor.

"Well someone read my mind that I like it rough, at least," Hawke said sarcastically.

 _Evidently so,_ Fenris thought sarcastically to himself, remembering again the black-haired elf in the whorehouse.

"You've got three seconds," Aveline said harshly.

"I've learned my lesson the first time so I'll go straight to the point – I went to look for Carver, I thought if something happened to me it's best if you all gave up on me, I got lost, got into trouble, woke up in the Imperium, found my way back, found Carver, he's good and he sends his mocking regards to you since he has a much better position than you, stayed with him for a time, came back yesterday. Or was it the day before yesterday?" she said extremely quickly and caught her breath.

Aveline's eyes widened and she helped Hawke up. She thought she was going to tackle her again, but instead, she hugged her. "Thank the Maker, if he exists, that you're safe, you crazy bitch."

"If the Maker exists, I would advise him not to show himself now. It would be really bad for his reputation," Hawke said sarcastically and pat Aveline on the back.

"That would have been an excellent punishment – to order her not to defend herself. But I see she's done it on her own," Fenris said nonchalantly to Varric.

"I knew she wouldn't," Varric said charmingly. "Why waste a perfectly empty slot for a much better punishment. Oh, that reminds me – Aveline. I'm giving her 21 punishments for leaving like an asshole. First was to only respond to the name 'Morganna Asschabs', so keep that in mind."

"I take it that pink unicorn-looking dragon is her second," Aveline said as she chuckled at the sight.

"And you milady, get the right to use one of the vacant spots on the punishment list," Varric said confidently.

Aveline grinned maliciously, "Good. Seems only fair."

Hawke sighed, "Seems more and more to me that I've actually died somewhere on the road and this is the Void. At least I have company. Can't complain."

"Not to disturb the cocoon of love and tittie-bumping in here, but we have to get going," Varric said awkwardly.

"Why?" Aveline asked bewilderedly.

"You're welcome to come. Morganna's next punishment is due."

"It is?" Hawke asked in outrage. "Can't give me a break, can you?"

"Nope," Varric said sweetly. "She's going to the Wounded Coast to fish."

"Really?" Hawke said unimpressed. "That's your genius punishment?"

"With bare hands," Varric finished charmingly. "We'll need the fish for something else, later. At sunset, we come back to the Hanged Man for celebration. And for another punishment."

"Oh, fuck me," Hawke said in anger and brushed her forehead.

"As much as I would like to awkwardly fornicate with a human like a mad weasel,  _I_ 'm giving the orders, not you," Varric said charmingly.

* * *

 

**Afternoon, Wounded Coast**

It was a beautiful day… to see Hawke struggle. The sun crept in through the shipwreck in the sea, adorning the irritating noise of the seagulls and the blasphemous sand that got stuck everywhere in their boots, well, except for Fenris. At one point Hawke started swearing so much because she couldn't catch a fish that Varric and Aveline decided to just take a walk into the sunset and leave her be. Of course, Varric wanted to for other reasons, mainly to make Aveline tell him exactly where her guards patrolled in this area and to manipulate her into stealing ownership of the Hanged Man again.

Fenris decided he'd much rather see her curse her eyes out and keep spilling the sand out of her boots. After he couldn't take it anymore and started laughing at her she threw her boots at him and missed.

"I would say 'Nice try', but… it wasn't," he said confidently and grinned to no end.

"I could certainly use some help here, if you're not too busy contemplating the depths of the absolute and of my behind," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Do I have a choice? It's standing in my sun," Fenris said sarcastically and got up. He turned up his pants to his knees and got into the water.

"Thanks, I'm gonna take a break now," she said cunningly and proceeded to get out of the water.

He frowned and tried to make her trip, but she saw it coming.

"I would say 'Nice try', but… it wasn't," she imitated him sarcastically.

"Get back to work," Fenris said flatly.

She ignored him and went into the deeper water again. Much to his surprise, she started catching the fish masterfully now, as if she suddenly learned the skill in seconds.

"You just did that for the show," Fenris said nonchalantly.

She grinned, "Why not make fun of myself a little and let you all gloat?" she said and put the fish in a basket. "This was almost a daily thing for me to do in Lothering."

"Then why require my help in the first place?" he asked bewilderedly.

"'Cause you hate fish," she said cunningly. "And you caught my bait."

He frowned, "Great."

"Oh, cut your negativity. Just feel the water on your skin and breathe in and out, close your eyes, feel the sun. Let loose a little, it won't kill you, I promise," she said warmly and did those same things.

"I'm not worried about  _that_ killing me," he said flatly.

"Don't you trust me?" she asked warmly. "I think we're past that point."

He watched her fascinated as the wind blew in her hair and she seemed peaceful and relaxed. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Fine, why not. He closed his eyes and felt the sun on his face, his body becoming looser and less heavier now. Suddenly he felt like he was in Seheron again, but not with his master. It seemed as if he was remembering something completely different, but without much detail or context.

The mystery would not be eluded now, however, since Hawke took the opportunity to push him in the water and he bit her bait like a foolish little gazelle. He fell right into the water and he gave her a vicious homicidal glare as he squirted the water out of his mouth.

"I told you it wasn't going to kill you," she said in amusement.

Perhaps she felt too confident about that statement. He got up angrily and tried to tackle her, but she got out of his way and ran away.

"Venhedis," he cursed angrily and chased after her.

"Abracadabra," she said mockingly and stopped and turned to him to splash a whole wave of water in his face with her foot, or perhaps, a bit of force magic.

He growled and remained unperturbed and kept chasing her in the water, along the shore.

"You catch more flies with honey, but, oh well," she shouted mockingly.

After a few seconds of chasing and going in circles, she caught a fish rapidly from the water and held it with both her hands by the tail.

"Stay where you are," she said in a serious tone. "I have a fish in my hands and I'm not afraid to use it," she said, trying not to burst into laughter.

He stopped and frowned at her, his anger getting the better of him. He couldn't think at all. Months of mocking and barking with Hawke and then he got a 'break', but only for her to return and things to get even worse, and more confusing.

Instead of laughing it off, something in him stirred, so he approached her quickly and got the fish out of her and threw it away as if it were nothing. She paced back slowly and he walked forwards at the same pace with her, locking their eyes in a staring match. He tried to grab her and she ducked down. He cursed and tried again, thinking that if she ducked down again he would instantly grab her. She didn't. She turned quickly with her whole body and tried to run for it again. He thrust his gauntlet into the tail of the Grey Warden/ Pink Dragon robe and dragged her back. The inertia pushed her back right into him and she woke up with his gauntlet around the front of her neck from behind, his other hand holding her into place by the torso. Then she felt his lips breathing in her ear, saying in a ferociously serious tone, "Don't ever do that again."

She felt a rush of terror in her, the intelligent voice in her head saying 'You should listen to what he said.', but she couldn't help but smirk and turn her head slowly to her right to face him. He looked into her eyes waiting for her to give an answer, but her look drifted to his lips and his eyebrows lifted shortly in confusion. In a matter of a split second, she got a hold of his gauntlet and bumped into him, struck an elbow in his abdomen and once she was free she pushed him, making both of them fall into the water, since his grip didn't grow perfectly loose. Strips of water from her hair fell on his face as she stood on top of him, restraining his hands. "Or what?" she asked in a determined voice with a giant smirk.

At that point, he didn't even remember why they got there in the first place. All he could see was his beautiful, frustrating friend overpowering him in a much different, questionably pleasurable way than the times he was being restrained by other causes. He would have taken the opportunity to somehow distract her and turn the wheel in his favour, turning her away and getting on top of her to restrain her, but an irritating noise startled them both.

"I see you two made up. Kind of," Varric's voice came from atop the short cliff nearby.

"Kind of," Hawke said and got up away from him.

He couldn't help but curse in his mind, though he wasn't sure for which of the possible reasons.

* * *

 

**Sunset, The Hanged Man**

Somehow it was absolutely baffling and incredibly ridiculous that when they came back, the whole group, even Merrill, Anders and Isabela were there to celebrate. After Hawke explained her absence to them, too, they started playing Wicked Grace and it turned into a great fiasco. Isabela and Varric almost ganged up against Hawke and Fenris. It was somehow a matter of Team Cheating vs Team Thinking. Despite the confusion, the awkwardness from a few hours before on the Wounded Coast, the snarky comments and whatever else that seemed NOT to paint a clear picture of what state of friendship they were in, the two exchanged telepathic looks effortlessly. At one point it seemed as if the game would never end. Suddenly, Hawke felt something brushing at her thigh and looked only for a second down to see Fenris giving her his card, keeping a perfect aura of nonchalance. She exchanged a card with him quickly and after a few other attempts, Hawke eventually won.

"A toast for my impeccable taste, the great many talents that made me the man I am today, my beautiful Bianca," Varric said as he raised his pint, "Not you, Asschabs," he said looking at Hawke, "And for all my friends," he finished, but smiled again at her, " _Now_  you're in there."

"Ok, what's my punishment now?" she asked grumpily.

"Right, Number 4. Let's see," Varric said charmingly. "Forgive me a moment."

He came back from the bar with a new pint, "You have to drink this mix and guess what I put it there."

"Please tell me you didn't put fish grease in it," Hawke said pleadingly.

"You'll find out once you drink it," Varric said cunningly and smiled.

"You're the expert in fish, Fenris," Hawke said and shoved the pint in his face, "What do you say?"

"I say – get that out of my face, fish or no fish," Fenris said flatly.

"Here goes nothing," she said while rolling her eyes and took a sip. "It's not that bad," she said, her eyebrows joining in an examining frown. "There's definitely ale and wine in it, I think even jasmine tea."

"Go on," Varric said in entertainment.

She took another large sip. "Ew, is that carrot juice?"

"Go on."

"Let me guess, there's dragon's blood whisky in there."

"Yep, but can you guess my secret ingredient?"

Hawke grabbed her throat, "Embrium?" she said and started coughing. "You bastard."

She started coughing heavily and Anders intervened, "You have her embrium with dragon's blood? Are you mad?"

"What's the big deal? I don't get it?" Varric asked before she fainted on the table.

"That happens," Anders said in annoyance and tried to grab her up.

"Andraste's tits, I didn't kill her, did I?" Varric said as he got up worried.

"You didn't, but," Anders said and paused as Hawke regained consciousness.

"My head," Hawke said in a husky voice. "My head is a purple cloud with a cow sitting on it smoking a cigar."

"What?" Varric asked in outrage. "What did I do to her?"

"You got her baked and drunk at the same time, and triple that because of your stupid combination. What else did you put in her drink?" Anders asked.

"Uh, green giant," Varric said awkwardly.

"Andraste's fuzzy whiskers," Anders said and backed off. "Good luck with that."

Hawke drew a genuinely perfect drunk smile and raised her hands in the air, "I'm flying in a giant butterflies of sea. Woooh, that's nice," she said and swayed.

"I don't understand. Is she seeing things?" Merrill asked in worry.

"Daisy, whatever is in her head right now, I don't think it's going to end up well," Varric said.

"You don't say," Fenris said grumpily, ducking down every time Hawke swayed or almost hit him with her arm.

"Hey, look, it's a bird. No wait, it's a griffon," Hawke said in amusement, but then widened her eyes and got up from the table. "Nope, nope, nope, nope," she said in a rush and ran away.

"Shit," Varric said in annoyance. "Elf, you're the fast–", but Fenris already got up from the table and disappeared to catch her.

"You've really outdone yourself this time, Varric," Isabela said and shook her head with an amused smile.

"And I didn't even try! Maker's balls. Is this serious?" Varric asked Anders.

"Not … really. I mean, she's going to see stuff for a while. Or simply be extremely paranoid."

"But nothing like the mana withdrawal incident, right?"

"No, nothing that gory. But Fenris shouldn't have gone after her."

"Why?"

"Well, what usually happens when you bark at a seriously intoxicated person that knows how to fight?"

"Oh, no, we're going after them. No one's dying on my watch. Let's go, Blondie."

* * *

 

**Outside The Hanged Man**

As Fenris ran in the street, there was no sound and no Hawke. He looked in the different directions and tried to think where he should go.  _If I were Hawke, so a crazy lunatic while sober, and I were also drunk and stoned, where would I go?_

His ear vibrated as he heard a "Hic" somewhere from above and he looked up to see her on top of the newly added roof above the door.

"Hawke, get down here right now," he said in annoyance.

"I can't. They'll find me. They can hear me," she whispered.

He sighed and cursed and climbed on the little roof. She was sitting with her back against the wall and he decided to just sit next to her. With any luck, she would calm her down and convince her to come down. In the worst case scenario, she would tackle him and try to kill him. He heard Varric and Anders get out of the building and arguing with each other. She immediately put her gauntlet over Fenris's mouth, "Shhht," she whispered. "They came to take me back. I'm not going back alive."

When they disappeared in the night, she let go of Fenris and started laughing. "That was close."

"What do you mean you're not going back alive?" he asked her in confusion.

"They want me back. I'm not going," she repeated.

"You're not making any sense," he replied flatly.

She sighed and started swaying again. "No sense."

He frowned and leaned with his back on the wall again, "Yes, no sense," he said and shook his head.

"I'm scared," she whispered.

He looked at her in confusion and raised an eyebrow. "Of what?" She didn't answer. She looked in the distance with a blank, pale face and appeared not to have even heard him. "Hawke," he said, but she didn't hear him. Her eyes were starting to close wearily and he instinctively caught her before she could fall on him. He didn't know what to do now. He inhaled heavily and unstrapped his shoulder pad, placing her head on his shoulder. He stood there holding her in the now deathly silence and thought to himself just how ridiculous this day had been.

"I'm scared," she said her mutter again, but her eyes were closed. She started trembling heavily and he concluded that whatever conversation he could ferret out of her, was pointless.

"It's alright," he simply said and squeezed her tighter to restrain her trembling.

"They're going to catch me," he heard her mutter. Her trembling was so strange. It's like suddenly she turned into a little terrified child with no defence whatsoever that was being hunted by an army of darkspawn. Or was it Templars? Maybe her stoned paranoia made her think she was hunted by the Chantry, that they knew who she was.

He didn't know what to do and he felt uncomfortable, but he could swear if he made any protest and tried to make her come down with him, she'd probably attack him thinking he was going to 'take her to them'. Even if none of what she was seeing or feeling was real, the emotion was and it made it real for him too. For a moment, he felt fear and concern for her life and he couldn't help but picture what she had probably hallucinated – Templars putting a mana burning leash on her, dragging her to the Gallows or worse, torturing and killing her on the spot. The illusion, despite it being so, was still a grave and undeniably concrete possibility in Kirkwall.

He moved his gauntlet from her shoulder to her head and brushed her hair under his chin. "No one is going to take you," he said calmly.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, The Hanged Man**

Hawke woke up with a gruesome and gigantic pain in her eyes and forehead. The light burned her vision and she felt like she had received a dozen blows to the head in one night.

"Ugh, my head," she said and tried to get up. Her vision started to clear out, but still burning and hurting. The soft red blanket on her only made her conclude she was in Varric's bed. She instinctively looked to her right in terror, but there was no one there.

As she got up and limped forwards, she looked in the room to see Fenris asleep with his head and arms resting on the giant dwarven table. She tried to walk out of the room quietly, but the door creaked loudly and she saw his head move and rise up.

"Sorry," she almost whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you. Where's Varric?"

He growled in weariness and tried to open his eyes properly. "After he gave you his bed, he rented another room."

"Why?" she asked bewilderedly. "What happened here?"

"You don't remember?" he muttered calmly as he rubbed his eyes. "Of course you don't."

"I remember winning at Wicked Grace, but not much else."

"Then you lost a huge chunk of the night."

"Uh, should I get you anything?"

"Varric's hangover remedy," he muttered in a sleepy voice while holding his head. "For you. Tea for me."

"Right," she said as she frowned.

As she came back and they started drinking the beverages, she looked at him insistently as if she was screaming at him telepathically to start telling the story.

"In a minute," he said flatly and pressed his eyes. He leaned backwards on the chair and his back creaked like a thousand broken bones.

"Andraste's flaming tits, Fenris," she said in amazement.

"It's nothing," he said nonchalantly.

"It will become nothing, if you don't do anything about it," she said assertively.

"Do you want to know what happened or not?" he deflected.

"Fine," she said and took a sip of her hangover remedy which tasted like dead rat.

"Varric poisoned you unintentionally. You went crazy and climbed on the roof of the tavern."

"What the? Why?" she asked in confusion. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Right, crazy. How should you know."

"They went to look after you in Lowtown, but I found you on the roof. You were being paranoid and thought they were going to take you."

"Varric and the others?" she asked.

"Yes," he said flatly. "I think."

"Did I attack you or something?" she asked insistently.

"No," he said nonchalantly and looked at the bed. "After a while you fell asleep and we carried you here. The end."

"You don't have a knack for storytelling, do you?" she said and shook her head. "But why did you stay here?"

He shrugged, "I was tired. The rooms were full," he said nonchalantly, then gave a small grin. "And you were crazy." He saw her frown. "Besides, Varric is an incompetent caretaker at the moment."

"Foolish," she said as she half stumbled, trying to get up. "I don't need a caretaker. I'd rather go to my house. You're being a nuisance. You always were."

"I think you dreamed that," he said and smiled. She just had to be the independent defensive warrior queen, the 'I can walk unaided, thank you' sort.

"I thought you said I was asleep anyway," she said and narrowed her eyes, as she sat back down in the chair.

"You woke up terrified a lot of times during the night," he said and took a sip of his tea.

"Did we..?" she asked awkwardly. "I mean did I-"

He frowned and shook his head, "No, of course not," he said and cleared his throat.

"Good," she said in relief and smiled. "Thanks for keeping an eye on me, then."

That was an understatement. He had to go by her bed numerous times and tell her nobody was coming after her. He wondered why in her delusion she didn't think he was going to do something to her and she listened to him, anyway.

"Oh shit," she said and widened her eyes. "I have to go."

"Why?" he asked her in suspicion.

"I was supposed to meet someone yesterday after the celebratation."

He frowned and felt the curious anger coming back to him. That elf.

"Thanks again, Fenris," she said and rushed to the door. "I'll see you later."

The door opened again after a few seconds and she came back. "Oh, by the way, can I come by your mansion later?"

"Alright," he said flatly and she rushed again out from the room.

* * *

 

**Sunset, Fenris's Mansion**

Her voice came, clear, inescapable, as it had been before, as if it was inside his head.

"Knock, knock," she said sarcastically as she came into his study.

"Very funny," he said nonchalantly.

She had flowers in her hair and was wearing a blue long tunic over dark pants with the red itchy scarf. He raised his eyebrow questioning her telepathically why she was dressed like that.

"Oh, right," she said and looked at her robe/gown thing. "Long story."

"Does it start with 'There lived once a pretty little princess by the name of- "

"No," she said and rolled her eyes. "Varric had me pretend to be a statue for an hour in Hightown. Nobody even noticed! Idiots," she muttered and started to get the flowers out of her hair.

"You wanted to tell me something?" he asked in a weary voice.

"Not that I am aware of at the moment, no," she said calmly.

"Then why did you ask if you could come here?"

"I thought you said I could come here anytime I wanted without searching for reasonable excuses."

"You did. Then you ran away for six months. Things change."

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "Oh, come on. I thought we were past this."

"We are. I was just curious," he said hesitantly.

"I think there's something more to this," she said perceptively, demanding of him things he couldn't afford to talk about.

"Why would you think that?" he asked nonchalantly.

"I don't know. It's like ever since our conversation ended abruptly on the roof because of Varric, you started being angry with me again. I don't know."

"I'm not angry with you."

"Then why the snarky matches again?"

He laughed softly. "I thought it was natural with you to engage in senseless bickering."

"So that's how it is? The only time we ever have serious and calm, friendly conversations is whenever we're in this very room?"

He grinned. "Must be something to it, indeed."

"I don't believe you," she said assertively.

He looked away. "Believe what you will. I care not."

"You wanted to ask me something at the Keep. What was it?"

He hesitated. "It's none of my business."

"Just ask your question, Fenris."

"Were you supposed to meet that elf from the brothel? That you rushed so quickly from the tavern this morning."

She widened her eyes as if this was the stupidest question he could possibly ask. "Yes, I was."

"I understand," he said flatly and looked away.

She laughed delightfully, "Oh, you think I frequent whores now? Figures."

"From the restless way he talked to you seductively and your obvious responses that could only clearly show that you knew each other intimately, yes."

"I don't know if you could call it intimate. In a way, yes."

"I don't understand."

"About a year ago, I had some business at the Rose. I bumped into him accidentally and after I finished my job, I saw him reading a book about the Black Fox. I told him that whatever he read was bullshit. One thing led to another and…"

"And?"

"I was lonely. I didn't know anyone interesting that had enough brains to comprehend my speeches. He was very smart. Well, better yet, he was perceptive and intelligent. He had this patience and delight in him, like even though he was a whore, life was good and he could make the most of it by reading in his spare time or something. But I wasn't allowed to talk to him unless I paid for him, so I booked a room and we just talked for a few hours."

He crooked his eyebrow to no end. "Just talked?"

She chuckled, "Do you think me that desperate to pay for sex?"

"It's rather ironic. You refuse to pay for pleasures, but you're desperate enough to pay for a conversation."

She smiled. "Yes, I was pathetic. I was in desperate need for a soul to listen to me. But it was worth it."

"So what you mean is that you kept going to the Rose just to talk to him?"

"No. He wasn't that interesting and I was poor. It was just that one time. But he saw how my back was extremely stiff and I told him it had been a problem ever since I picked up the sword. As luck would have it, he was an expert in massage techniques."

He snorted. "You went to the brothel to get massages?"

"You have no idea how much it helped me. It was like I had been a thousand-year old statue that suddenly came to life and I cracked and dust came out of me. My back was in paradise."

"I see. But you said you bruised him and that you strangled him."

"Oh, yeah. That was an ugly incident. I don't know what came over me but he touched some spot that hurt like hell. I attacked him out of instinct. After a time, I didn't have money to spare for my therapy because of the expedition and I kind of felt guilty of my behaviour, too. So I told him I wasn't going to come anymore."

"I think I understand."

"Well yeah, if one would touch you anywhere you'd probably attack them."

"Probably."

"Wait… so you were 'angry' with me because of that?"

He hesitated and crossed his arms. "No," he said flatly.

"Then why ask?" she said in amusement.

"It was just … strange. I would have never pictured you doing something like that."

"And glad I am to hear it," she said warmly.

He struck a sensual, dark grin. "Maybe you are a lady."

"If you say 'maybe', then you're not yet convinced."

"Forgive my skepticism."

"No, it's alright. I'm not sure myself."

He inhaled heavily and decided to ask her about that night. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

"When Varric poisoned you and you became paranoid and climbed on top of the tavern, you said that you didn't want them to take you. You kept muttering that you were scared that they were going to catch you. Who were 'they'?"

"I don't remember having such delusions, so I couldn't tell you."

"But surely you can fathom out what sort of delusion it was. No one knows where the shoe pinches but he who wears it."

She hesitated and shrugged, "I honestly don't know."

"You have never stricken me as somebody who would be afraid of something. You flirt with destruction everywhere and yet, somehow, you were terrified that night, like a little defenceless child. I can't help but ask if it was about the Templars."

She looked into the fire. "That would certainly explain my horror, yes."

"You fought in front of a lieutenant, you stood your ground in front of that Ser Karras, even if you were so close to them finding out about you. It's just, I don't know."

"I can still be afraid of them. All it takes is one slip and I'm in the Gallows."

"I thought you were scared for your Mother and not yourself."

"Most of my fear lies in her possible pain, yes. But I have some fear reserved only for myself. I'm only human."

"Have you used your magic on the road?"

"To provide water or fire, but other than that, no. And even that, rarely."

"Good."

"Are you suddenly concerned for my safety or something?"

"Isn't that what friends do?"

She smiled at those words, but shook her head. "And still I'm a mage and the place where you would put me is in fact, the Gallows. That hasn't changed, has it?"

"If I put you into the Gallows, there would be wars. I do not doubt that."

"You think I'd wage a war in protest to save myself?" she asked in amusement.

He smirked. "I think you would do it for the others. Not for yourself."

She smiled and looked into the fire again. "Well, then, I guess you can keep hating me."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I don't hate you, Hawke."

"Then what do you – me? It's kind of confusing."

"You're asking me? I barely understand the concept of friendship."

"But you do feel like this is a friendship, right? To the best of your limited understanding."

"I-," he stuttered, "I don't know. Sometimes you are not so bad, I can say that much."

She looked into the fire. Her face was that of a child. Rosy lips and big, wondering eyes, wondering what questions to ask.

"You're difficult. Not in a mysterious, tantalizing way. Just, it's like I could tell or ask you a great deal of things and you'd welcome it, yet I could make a wrong move, say the wrong thing and then everything would be done."

"What do you mean?"

"You have some anger triggers. I haven't discovered them all, but anyway, it freaks me out to think that I could say something to scare you away, make you mad and you would just spit and leave town."

"And yet I haven't. Whatever you're doing seems to be working in your favour."

"And that's also the dilemma – I am aware that you are difficult and that there's always a chance things could go wrong and yet, I don't care for it. I don't know how to explain. I just find myself saying things to you without care that you might lash out on me or leave. And yet, it scares me."

He frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know. I don't care about that either," she said as she smiled honestly.

He laughed softly, "Then why are we discussing this?"

"I thought I might find out with your help. If I speak out loud even. I don't know."

Fenris laughed, "It's ironic, yet again. But luck is your charm, isn't it? You have found an elf that listens to you without having to pay for it."

"Ah, yes. That's true. I should be thanking Anso, indeed. Wherever might he be at now?"

"I haven't seen him at all since that night."

"Wherever he is, I think we should make a toast in his honour, don't you?"

"Certainly."


	17. Varric's 21 Punishments II

**Nighttime, Fenris's Mansion**

I woke up to see her still staying there, on the bench next to the fireplace, deep in thought and trying to brush her hair. The red mass of thick and beautiful hair that she almost never dared to wear loose if she could have the choice. Did I fall asleep so quickly? Why hadn't she just left?

I had never asked of her for favours. To be honest, I couldn't afford to. But in my particular delight to see her still staying there after I had fallen asleep, as if she watched over me for fear I might flee and disappear, nothing seemed more appropriate than that I should ravage her.

I rose from my bed and went to her, almost hearing that distinct, lovely sound of her heartbeat in the ghostly silence of my wreck of a house. There was nothing in that moment for me than that delightful sound and my certainty that I would ensure it continued.

"Let me comb your hair out for you," I said warmly from behind, feeling insolent that I even dared to ask, but I couldn't help it this time.

She said nothing, only turning her big and childlike eyes, though terribly unshakable and strong. She faced me with a telepathic smile of agreement, giving me the brush and turning back to watch the fire. Although it seemed surreal, I finally swallowed my defences and dared myself to touch it, hold it in my hand as I brushed it slowly as not to rip it by accident. It felt just as soft as it looked and she seemed unaffected by my clumsy action.

"Why didn't you leave?" I asked her calmly, continuing to brush her red hair slowly.

"I wanted to, but I couldn't. It's so peaceful here," she said with an almost guilty voice. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"I'm happy you didn't," I said warmly, feeling my mouth draw out the natural, as of late incontrollable smile I only allowed her to see.

"Oh? You suddenly enjoy my presence? Alert the Chantry," she said sarcastically.

"I do enjoy it," I said in a deep, serious voice. "And why? Strong, yes, quick-witted, yes, beautiful, yes, and inside you, the burnt-up relics of a saint."

"Fenris, what are you even saying? I was never a saint, I don't claim to be. I'm a wretched, disrespectful and ungrateful being."

"No, you're wrong. You could not be more wrong," I said flatly, shaking my head at how little credit she could give herself. It had occurred to me long ago that I didn't need to demean her, make her feel like she was nothing because she was something I hated. She did it all on her own and it was frustrating to think that all the while she was the only mage I regretted being hostile with, she would not cease to be hostile with herself.

"Oh, you're adorable. Somehow it's strange, but I find it delighting to be helpless at your mercy." Her words suddenly angered me and I stopped the brush.

"Stop mocking me," I said firmly, almost feeling guilty of how aggressive I sounded.

"But I'm not," she said in her characteristic bone-hard way. She turned to face me and took the brush out of my hand. "I want to speak the truth. I want to be a fool for the truth, a fool for – well, I want to be a fool for you."

Preposterous. "No, I don't guess you do mean to mock me. You mean it. And you don't realize the absurdity of it."

"Take it however you want to. I think I've made myself clear to you enough times," she said boldly, eyeing me with a determined look.

"Perhaps you did," I said with a grin, calming myself. But it was not a calmness that I understood; it was rather a curious form of trusting or of feeling that  _she_  understood me. I did not know. I did not care in that moment.

I pulled her up by the hand and she kept her unperturbed look, waiting and I couldn't help but look at her peach-soft lips that opened in a vague wondering expression that I found enchanting. I looked at that beautiful red hair that seemed like a crown of sorts, the only crown she would ever dare to wear. And all that in the beat of a second, for what followed was her wrapping her arms around me and I, in turn, placing my hand in her hair as I kissed her. I was driven mechanically, as if I knew exactly what to do. Nothing in the world could have tasted so sweet. She held onto me tightly and placed a hand on my heart and I could only feel the vibration of it beating against her hand, for whatever was inside, my heart, my brain, they were gone and there was only her and her touch. For shame, if it would end now.

I threw her down on my bed and suddenly I felt her fragile and defenceless under me, as I bent down and kissed her again, maddened by her sharp, pretty eyes which stared cooly at me as I did it. I took her hands that were wrapped around my back and swung her left wrist over with her right, entrapping both her hands in one so that I was free to rip open her blue shirt that she wore for her statue-punishment that day. I ripped it forcefully, the pearls of her buttons simply flying off and the girdle and lace that was underneath I broke as if it were nothing.

She stopped me, held my face into her warm hands and searched for my look, maybe my reason. Maybe I frightened her. But she was smiling at me and brought my lips to hers again. She wrapped her legs around my back and swung me on the side until I was under her overpowering grip. She took advantage of my weakness and took control, entrapping my hands this time and bending over me again to shower me with her bewitching kisses, as if I deserved them. As if they were only mine.

I was maddened by them and couldn't help it. I gave the whole of my force to escape her grip and rose from my back and wrapped my arms around her because she was only mine and I had to hear that heart beating if it killed me.

"Fenris?" a voice slapped him and he opened his eyes in terror.

**KAFFAS**

"Kaffas to you too, now let's go," Varric said sarcastically while his arms were crossed.

"For the love of all the existing or invented gods, don't you people EVER knock?" Fenris half shouted ferociously as he rose from his back and placed an arm over his covered lap.

"I knocked like twenty times, elf. Common courtesy ends when my large and reasonable patience does. Now come, you gotta see this!" Varric said in excitement.

"What is so important that you had to break into my house?" Fenris growled in annoyance.

"Hawke's gonna walk blindfolded over booby traps. And then some!" Varric said in amusement.

"Aren't you done torturing her for your own amusement?"

"Most of what I'm telling her to do are things she would do voluntarily on a dare, so, nope."

"Get out of my house," Fenris said angrily.

"Someone woke up with their ass on the pillow, jeesh," Varric muttered grumpily and proceeded to walk out of the room. "If you're not coming, then at least Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man?"

"Never miss it," Fenris said grumpily and rolled his eyes.

* * *

 

**Sunset, The Hanged Man**

"Can I take it off already?" Hawke asked Varric as she had been wearing a green troll mask for hours now.

"Nonsense," Varric said charmingly. "You're so pretty now, just look at you," he said and brushed the fake black swamp hair from the mask.

"I'm going to kill you when this is over," Hawke muttered grumpily.

"You're learning your lesson not to flee from my wing without consequences next time, Asschabs," Varric said confidently and discarded a serpent.

"What was my other punishment again?" Hawke asked, rolling her eyes, even though nobody could really see it through the mask.

"If you stop subtly giving me the finger under the table, I'll tell you," Varric said assertively without looking at her.

"How did you-", she stuttered, "Fine."

"After we go take care of that shipment business at the Docks tomorrow, you're going to rinse yourself with fish grease and stand still in the sun for the seagulls to come and stand on you like on a statue. Unless they bite you, you can't move."

"Oh, that's much better than when you made me run into Lowtown and scream at people 'I lost my voice, please help me find it!'" Hawke said in annoyance.

Varric chuckled, "Oh, that was a good one. Seriously, I'm a genius."

"Beware of his Majesty, for he doth not know that he is the King of Fools," she recited courteously.

"Do you want me to make you kiss a chicken breast passionately for 90 seconds again?" Varric asked cunningly.

"I'll make you kiss something soon," Hawke said aggressively.

"That gives me another idea," Varric said confidently, caressing his maxillary. "You have to choose from either humping someone's leg or picking your nose and eating it."

"Suddenly I'm taken aback by the thought that I'm the sanest here from the two of us," Hawke said and sighed.

"Ugh, do I really have to go with you?" Isabela asked in annoyance.

"Yes, Riviani, you're the only one who knows the guy," Varric said insistently.

"Why can't I just give you a pair of panties or something so he'll know I'm sending my regards through you?" Isabela asked charmingly.

"I'm not touching that even if the Knight-Commander tortures me into it," Hawke said while frowning. "It's enough that you're scratching dirty stuff on my walls every time you visit. You're coming to the Docks with us and that's final."

Isabela sighed like a child and crossed her arms, "Like a slave, I'm being dragged by my ruthless masters to the dark pits of the earth."

Fenris gave her a silent homicidal frown and suddenly everyone remained stunned and prepared to tackle him from jumping at her throat.

"Oops, I forgot you were here," Isabela said awkwardly.

"Are you seriously comparing having to go to the Docks with slavery?" he asked angrily, his one big vein pumping and boiling out of his forehead.

"In my defense," Isabela said hesitantly and frowned, "I thought you weren't here to hear it."

Fenris got up and spat on the ground, then rushed out of the tavern angrily. Everyone looked back at Isabela and she scratched the back of her hair awkwardly. "What? I honestly didn't notice he was at the table."

"Smooth, Isabela," Hawke said sarcastically and shook her head.

* * *

 

**Outside the The Hanged Man**

Fenris pressed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, trying to push down the rage, but that innocent comment was nothing for him if not utterly impertinent and outrageous. He had spent years, years... No. Some things one does not want to remember. Like being damned, denied your food, playing bodyguard by day and being shackled up in chains again by night. Danarius getting his delight from having him watch how the other slaves were whipped and kicked in the middle of their work, because they got tired and stopped for a few seconds. That malignant, ruthless filius scrofae, brushing his filthy hand in his hair and whispering to him "Remember how lucky you are, my little wolf." That was no luck. Certainly, having nothing to remember but his time with him, not knowing if one from the thousand cries of tortured souls he used to hear by night or the slaves that were being beaten by day was his mother or father or sibling. Danarius told him he didn't need to worry about that, as if he told him his family didn't exist or was not under his command, but how could he be sure anyway. He had to keep his unperturbed look, stay silent and not show any weakness.

It was not enough that Danarius had to play mind games with him, he allowed and even took pleasure in letting his apprentices interact with him freely. He had an undeniable pleasure from letting them try their games on him. It was a test of intelligence no less and some of them knew better. Hadriana wouldn't let herself near him; she kept her distance while teasing and torturing, like a hideous spider that taunted its already immobilized pray from afar in her web. She wouldn't risk putting herself in danger for nothing and she knew how Danarius thought. It was a sign of loyalty and of intelligence from her, no to force more command over Fenris than Danarius did.

But other apprentices were cocky and flirted with risk, they had in their heads that they were powerful and commanding and making him subdue in their presence would make Danarius proud and approving of them. Some of them tried to touch him… in ways that his blind instinct could not possibly be held under control any longer and he'd defend himself to the best of his ability, crack their skulls open or bite out their ears, because other than that, he had no other defense. When Danarius would come and see their gory bodies, he'd laugh in delight at the sight, as if he was proud of him. His master knew better than to abuse him directly, for no matter how much control he had over him, in a fit of blind instinct, there was a chance Fenris would attack him and he would be forced to kill his own creation. Danarius was smart in his ways, teasing him only indirectly, touching only his hair from time to time, brushing it as if he had affection for him, giving him a sense of false security. Making him think this the only world he knew and that he was lucky and it was good. No. Being a powerful personal bodyguard was worse, because there was certainty in the fact that he was not going to be killed - only tortured, malnourished and imprisoned, all while hearing and seeing the impossible cruelty and horrors of other men which weren't as lucky.

He didn't care if Isabela's comment was innocent, he didn't care if even she showed some compassion over the plight of slaves. All she did, she wouldn't do just for the sake of it, just for what was right. That was a mask he knew all too well. If there was not even the slightest chance of personal gain, even in risking it, she wouldn't do it. And her whining for so long that now the slaver captain wanted to kill her, she did as if she was a poor little victim with no responsibility. She had no idea what it meant to be him.

A delightful voice crept up from behind, like a soothing electric shock that made the memories go away in an instant.

"You know I had a coat like yours at the ball," she said from behind. "Beautiful black tail coat it was. You know what happened to it?"

"What?" he asked calmly, without looking at her.

She came next to him smiling and pointed at the metal spikes, "I took a clumsy jump there and the tail got stuck in them. Worst part was, the material was so thick that it didn't rip. So I kinda remained suspended in the air with my ass up and hung there for a good fifteen minutes."

A soft, sorrowful laugh came about him and she chuckled too, "I'm an idiot, I know."

"Yes you are," he said calmly and looked at her. He couldn't help but feel confused, although appreciate that she didn't prod him about his past or his feelings. It was his business and if he did not permit it, she wasn't going to force him into speaking about it. Neither did she come about to him and ask if he was alright or anything. She didn't have to and it was pointless. It was impressive how many fields and meanings she could cover with only one sentence. It was as if she told him 'I don't want to intrude in your thoughts, but you're a free man so suck it up, stop moping and let's do something fun.'

"Are you hungry?" she asked. "You have to be hungry."

"What if I am?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Mother asked me to convince you to come by for dinner, 'again'," she said. "I'm sensing you visited her a few times."

"I did," he said flatly. "You have a wonderful mother, Hawke."

"I know," she said warmly. "Oh, she can be frustrating sometimes, but she means the best. So are you coming or not?"

"Very well," he said knightly.

* * *

 

**Hawke's Estate**

"Oh, thank the Maker, I thought I had to come drag you here myself," Leandra said warmly and welcomed him inside the main room.

"I told you you should have just done that in the first place. It was just dumb luck on my part," Hawke said nonchalantly and walked inside.

"There was no need for dragging," Fenris said flatly and nodded knightly.

Hawke went into her room, probably to change from her unicorn-looking dragon Warden robes. Leandra laughed softly at his being a statue again and reminded him he just had to sit at the table and wait. She pointed the chair at the foot of the table. A seat of honour. When Hawke came back, she was just wearing a simple white shirt and dark pants, clearly not at all aristocratic. Even with her present noble status, Hawke still dressed as the old rebel, ordinary, commoner woman he first met. At least in that respect, he didn't feel that inappropriate in his clothes. Once they started eating, Hawke watched the two talk so effortlessly about current affairs and comment on the nobles, as if they had known each other forever.

A sudden rush of guilt and sadness came about her as she realized Fenris's few visits might have actually been a weekly routine and that he, who had no sorts of experience with socializing or proper bonding, kept to a sense of honor and watched over her, or maybe even found a friendly company in her mother. Of course she would make him feel comfortable and convince him to visit, her mother was certainly the sort of presence that simply exuded security and warmth, just like Bethany. She felt a bit envious of them for a long time, as in turn, she was inappropriate, impulsive and ordinarily anything that came out of her mouth was in a sarcastic or mean tone. Nothing ladylike or soothing, nothing that inspired trust. She felt at ease with convincing herself she did not need these traits to function, for she didn't give two spitting coopers about proper human conduct or relationships. What was productive and functional was her ability to do things, to fight, defend and work hard. Through those efforts she got this estate back and made her mother happy; not through sweet talk or delightful manners.

Her train of thought got interrupted when her mother started to talk about her.

"Oh, when she told me she was at the ball watching after me, I couldn't even be mad at her! It was too astonishing for me to hear that this little soldier had the patience to wear something humanly decent and pretend to mingle with the high classes," Leandra said in amusement. "I expect you will not accompany me to parties in the future, will you?"

"Damn right I will not," Hawke said assertively, combining courteous words with Lowtown vocabulary in a way that was most entertaining.

"Here you are, a noble woman in a huge mansion and all I see is that little girl covered in dirt and swinging that big sword from dawn til dusk and screaming at me not to disturb you."

"Well, I guess that hasn't really changed," Hawke said awkwardly, scratching the back of her head.

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Leandra said warmly, brushing her messy ponytail. "I wonder what you got from me, love."

"The insufferable trait of not accepting no for an answer, that's for sure," Hawke said sarcastically.

"And the nose," Fenris said nonchalantly. The two women looked at him in surprise, as if hejumped on the table and started juggling the plates. Suddenly he felt inappropriate and stuttered. "I mean -"

"Yes, that's true. We do have the same nose," Hawke said perceptively and narrowing her eyes. "What a pity."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Leandra said in soft outrage.

"Nothing, Mother, you're pretty," Hawke said sarcastically and rolled her eyes. "Kind of like Mojo here," she said in amusement and threw a wing at the dog.

"You're comparing me with the mabari?" Leandra said sadly. "Ugh, you really haven't changed."

"It wasn't exactly an insult. At least not an insult that wouldn't count me in it, too."

"See what I have to live with, Fenris?" Leandra said, shaking her head. "I don't know how you cope with her in your little group."

Fenris laughed softly, "She's certainly not a leader for the faint-hearted."

"That's a polite way of saying she's perfectly rude and insufferable, right?" Leandra chuckled.

"Hey!" Hawke said and frowned. "I'm delightful."

"Keep telling yourself that," Fenris said in amusement. "Once you convince yourself maybe you will manage to convince us, too."

"I don't know how you'll find a husband with this attitude," Leandra said warmly. "The softer arts are really not your thing."

"Maybe I don't need to learn the softer arts to land a husband because for one, I don't want one, and two, if I did wish to, I certainly don't want a noble wimp that pisses his pants at the sight of a dagger."

"That's not what I meant, love," Leandra said calmly. "I simply meant that-"

"I know what you meant," Hawke said and rolled her eyes. "And apart from not caring for it, I am utterly incapable of it as it is."

Leandra shook her head, "Maybe Fenris should teach you how to be more courteous and respectful of others."

Hawke snorted in amusement, "What?"

"I would need about a decade or two," Fenris said sarcastically and tried not to laugh.

"Why do you people always gang up on me? What did I do to you?" Hawke asked in outrage.

"Easy with the paranoia," Fenris said calmly. "Nobody is ganging up on you."

Hawke gave an arrogant "Hmph" and decided more wine was in order for this extremely ridiculous conversation.

"I'm just concerned for you, love. You're delightful in your own 'I hate you all! Leave me alone' way, but certainly you could at least try to be nicer to others," Leandra said and looked at Fenris with a warm gaze. "If I had a son-in-law like Fenris-"

Leandra stopped as Hawke choked on her wine and coughed heavily. "A son in what?" she asked awkwardly.

Fenris had to try, with his deepest strength, not to burst into laughter at the sight of Hawke being so clumsy and awkward and deeply uncomfortable. The sight was a perfect distraction from him tensing up and choking on his wine himself, for what her mother implied was nothing he would have expected in a thousand years.

"What?" Leandra asked innocently. "I ran away from the noble life with a fugitive apostate. You don't see me judging something that is also legal, lest you have forgotten," she said assertively and smiled warmly at Fenris." Who knows what might happen?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Hawke asked again, clearing her throat. "Could you cut it with your inappropriate motherly badgering? If Fenris flees the city because of you, I'm kicking you out of my house and you can chase him all the way to the Wilds."

"Before or after you remember to put the estate in your name?" Leandra said in amusement.

"Mother," Hawke said aggressively.

"No need, I was not offended," Fenris said calmly, trying not to laugh.

"I knew you wouldn't be," Leandra said warmly. "Plus, it would be a nice opportunity to visit Ferelden again, if you do flee the city."

"Mother, cut it out, please," Hawke said pleading. "If I lose my evading tank warrior, I'm gonna be doomed to scream pointless commands at fragile rogue princesses and mages. You don't want me to die on the field, do you?"

"I don't know what that means, love, but I don't think you should be worrying about that, does she, Fenris?"

"She does not," he said calmly. "She gets recklessly cornered too many times not to have another warrior there to distract the foes."

"Yes, what he said," Leandra said in amusement. "Forgive me a moment, I will bring desert."

As Leandra walked into the kitchen, Fenris tried to contain his amused smirk, but finally snorted.

"You're seriously loving this? Oh, I get it, 'cause the joke's on me," she said meanly.

"As I said before, if you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I'm happy to do it for you, Hawke," Fenris said while grinning in entertainment. "Besides, like your mother said, who knows what might happen?" he said nonchalantly.

"Oh, piss off," she said angrily and crossed her arms. "You stole Varric from me, now my own mother, too. You're such a snake."

"Well, it's good that I have a viper at my side that understands," he said in amusement.

"You're walking into dangerous territory, Fenris. You don't know who you're messing with," she said assertively.

"What can you do? Scream, bite, propose?" he said and smirked at the last bit.

"As a matter of fact, yes," she said and he lifted his eyebrows in fright. Was she really that crazy to do a stunt proposal in front of her mother just to make him lose at his own game? Of course she was that crazy, who was he kidding.

"I suggest you think that through," Fenris said and frowned.

"Oh, but you know you can't refuse me in front of her, right? It would be incredibly embarrassing, no?" she said cunningly and smirked.

"Fine, you win," Fenris said grumpily.

"Aaand?" she said mischievously.

He rolled his eyes, "And I'll convince Varric not to make you dance the remigold in a dress tomorrow."

"That's what I like to hear," she said confidently.

"I still have my punishment, though," Fenris said cunningly and smiled.

"Wasn't this dinner enough?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"Nonsense," he said calmly and grinned sensually. "I will have to put my imagination to good use."

"You have imagination?" she asked mockingly. "Shit, where was I when you started being so artsy?"

"I'd go with getting recklessly cornered by thugs somewhere on the Imperial Highway."

"Ha. Ha," she said meanly. "I did. And they're still dead. See? I don't need you."

"That's not what you said a minute ago," Fenris said in amusement.

"There are many voices in my head. Don't listen to everything I say," she said defensively. "I can say the weirdest things sometimes."

"Of course," he said calmly and grinned. He couldn't admit it just yet, but she was so delightful when she was defensive and childish. He remembered his 'Knight trumps Queen' comment. She was a dignified warrior, a fighter with a knack for keeping her ground only by herself, so positively unshakable, it was rather endearing. She was too proud to be a queen.

"Here you go," Leandra said motherly, coming back with a plate of cake. "Dig in and don't let a scrap of it uneaten, before Mojo figures out it's cheesecake."

* * *

 

**A week later, Morning, The Blooming Rose**

As much as Hawke wanted to curse her eyes out at Varric's latest punishment, she wasn't one to back down and mope. She had to clean the sheets in the Blooming Rose for one morning and when that morning finally ended, she was going to have a drink. Or twenty.

As she finished the dirty work under Isabela's keen supervision (she just couldn't understand why Isabela paid for a full year of golden membership and  _where_ she even got that kind of money), she saluted her and got the hell out of there.

When she exited the Rose, a million clowns dressed as elephants were still not as shocking and impossibly ridiculous as the sight of Fenris who seemed to be either coming in or going away from the place.

"Fenris, what are you doing here?" she asked from behind.

He flinched and turned his back and was suddenly enveloped in shameful look with an awkward lift to his eyebrows.

"I-," Fenris stuttered and his eyes wondered in different directions.

Hawke suddenly felt betrayed, as if the whole sense of logic she held on to and that included the whole of her perception of Fenris had suddenly been shattered to a million pieces. She kept an aura of nonchalance and laughed, "Thought to give the Rose a shot but then gave up at the last second and decided a whore wasn't worth it?"

"No," he said hesitantly and scratched the back of his head. "I was –"

"Shopping for dirty sheets? What?" she asked insistently, but keeping her cool, unperturbed look.

"I could ask you the same thing," Fenris retorted confidently.

"I had been punished to clean the sheets of this place for a whole morning. I wonder who gave Varric that idea," Hawke said grumpily and rolled her eyes.

"The pirate, no doubt," Fenris said flatly and crossed his arms.

"Well you're not being punished for anything. Well, maybe you  _want_ to be punished? No judgement," she said awkwardly and became aware of how tense she became.

Fenris sighed and looked down, as if he was a dog with the tail between his legs that was caught eating the family stake.

"I thought I'd look for that inappropriate elf you said that fixed your back," he said in an ashamed voice.

Hawke eyes widened and she tried not to breathe in relief, "Oh, ooooh…"

"But I decided not to," Fenris continued.

"Yeah, I was about to ask if you were sure it was a good idea to make a defenceless little person take on such a high responsibility, for lack of a better word."

"That's what changed my mind," he said in false calmness. He looked in different directions, obviously being tense.

Hawke looked down and frowned, but then said, "You know, I can take on that kind of weight, if you prefer," she said and hesitated, "I mean, if your back really bothers you that much." He lifted his eyebrows and hesitated to answer, so she continued with a smile, "I had half a year to learn from the best."

"I-," he stuttered. "No, I don't want to burden you with this."

She laughed, "What burden? So I might get a fist in my heart. Accent on the  _might._ It's kinda hard to sweep me off my feet, as you may have noticed."

"Yes, I suppose you're not so defenceless," he said calmly and looked away. "But-"

"Look," Hawke sighed. "I know you're seemingly self-sufficient - and that's just a polite way of saying that you're insufferably pseudo-independent – but I know what it's like to have a giant bitch of a back problem from greatswords. I understand."

He was incapable of asking. They both knew it.

"You know I won't accept no for an answer," Hawke said confidently.

Fenris sighed, "As you wish."

* * *

 

**The Hanged Man, Varric's Room**

"They're going at it again," Varric said to Isabela as she came into the room.

"What? I thought they made up," Isabela said bewilderedly.

"No, not her and the elf, her and Choirboy," Varric said in annoyance.

"I heard barking all the way from the market," Fenris said as he came into Varric's room, too.

They looked at Varric's giant table where Hawke and Sebastian were arguing with each other in a very civil, courteous way that just silently screamed murder.

"I'm sorry, but your sect holds on to a logic that supersedes the supernatural. Not only that, my dear, but most of all I am baffled at how viciously your zealots shuffle the amazing with the completely banal, the miracle with necessity. It's just a perfect means to justify something that is not even meant to be discovered and rationalized, yet how many deaths have there been in the Maker's name, I'd need millions of fingers to count that high," Hawke scowled at Sebastian determinedly.

"The past is the past, Hawke and they were only human. War was the only way to fight evil," Sebastian said calmly.

"What evil? Oh, you mean mages. You know something, Sebastian? To be a man is a drama; to be a mage is another one added to the list. A mage has the cruel privilege of living the human (or elven) condition twice. It's a double-sentence. He's always going to be aware of his singularity, his being separated from the rest of the world only by that one factor. And from there comes all this ill-at-ease airs that you see in mages. He never forgets about it, not for one moment can he just forget about what he is. No roots, no nothing, only the tyranny of the scenery that surrounds him everywhere he goes in your Andrastian lands. He cannot be a stranger to himself like non-mages have the privilege to and he can have no bonds. He will never just be the man  _from here_ or a man from anywhere. He'll be the one who cannot speak without being a suspect in the name of the land, in the name of  _everyone,_ right?"

Sebastian hesitated, for her speech was too passionate and he was lost for words.

"He can never, I don't know, be a representative of a people or be a speaker – if he tried – what a mission that would be! He could never stir, raise or lead a mass. He will always be held accountable for his own being, let alone the parents that he couldn't bury, the whole stock of ancestors he probably doesn't even know, far away, maybe in a different continent even. He has no graves to profit from, no family seal to hang in a glass case or be some kind of herald of the graveyard. He doesn't represent anyone, but himself."

"You're exaggerating, Hawke. It's not like other people don't face this kind of tyranny," Sebastian said in a slightly heightened tone, for she already angered him with her speech.

"I'm not talking just about mages, the subject we're on is your Andrastian religion."

"Then go back to that subject, because you're not making any sense so far," Sebastian said grumpily.

Something stirred in Hawke and everybody was watching her as if she was an explosive that would detonate at any second, but didn't look it quite just yet. "Ok, how can I tone it down for your clearly limited intelligence – you Andrastians just seem so proud of your "crisis of conscience", you're so grateful that someone else suffered for you; you simply live on the fat of the land in the shadow of plain calvary. You just have these shameful airs of profiteers, you swell in the Chantry like peacocks and when you get out, you can hardly control your grin – a grin given by the truth obtained without any labor on your part."

"Excuse me?!" Sebastian shouted.

Hawke got up from her seat and placed her hands forcefully on the table, looking Sebastian straight in the eye. "This blessing of yours – it's fun isn't it? This cheap blessing right in your backyard," she said and pointed somewhere forwards, as if she was pointing at an invisible Chantry, "that just spares you from the effort and labor of finding out the truth yourselves, SEEING with your own sodding eyes. You're "delivered", "saved" by this ridiculous carnival of false purity, braggarts and windbags of redemption in the eyes of a Maker who has abandoned you anyway, you're just horny  _sensualists_ of the virtue of serenity, of sin and of the Void! If you ever fret over your conscience, you only do it to give yourselves a few new sensations and then some. And to add them to the pile, to add the  **CHERRY ON TOP OF THE PILE OF BULLSHIT** , you torture the conscience of others, too. It's enough to just sniff a bit at some scruple, some laceration, some obsession over a sin or a mistake. Maker those poor souls you hound on – they are probably expected to scream out their guilt in front of you people.  **Just a bunch of sadistic spectators to others people's confusion and misery**."

"She's drunk, isn't she?" Isabela asked and shook her head.

"Yep," Varric said sweetly. "So what's been going on with you?" he asked awkwardly.

Fenris couldn't help himself, he had to control himself colossally not to laugh at how Hawke graphically described the Chantry people. For all her flaws, again, Hawke was such a spit in people's faces, going straight for the weak spots and remaining bone-hard in the way she explained herself. Though why she had to explain herself to this man, he did not know. Perhaps when she was drunk, she wouldn't care who she argued with, fool or no fool.

Hawke shouting.

"Oh, poor bastards, cry your eyes out if you can – it's what you Chantry folk can't wait for, impatient to get drunk on their tears, bathe in them if you could, relentless in their humilities. You can't wait to feast on their torment!"

"We don't feast on people's torment, Hawke, we help them get past it and embrace Andraste. It's the way of the good."

"Your 'good' is imprecise. Which is extremely shameful. Good is just good, righteous is only just righteous. But you have to stretch it out until it breaks, stretch it so it could excuse whatever thing you don't like about it, to your own favour. You twist the words of a dead woman and  **YOU SPEAK FOR THE MAKER** , as if you have the right to.  **Bah**. One thing I know for sure is that Andrastians are far from being obsessed with the TRUTH. An Andrastian just baffles himself at his "inner conflicts", of his vices and virtues, of the power of intoxication. He dances like a fool around the statue of a dead woman. He's just a sensualist of the macabre, that's what he is, of the deeply horrible and utterly monstrous. He finds pleasure in sensations that have nothing to do with pleasure, that's what's worse."

"What exactly are you saying?" Sebastian shouted and got up himself.

"I wonder. Wasn't the Andrastians who invented the  _orgasm_ of remorse? Behold, how you can always turn out to be a winner…"

Sebastian gasped at Hawke's deeply graphic way of accusing the Chantry. Everybody looked at them in silence, stunned, and wondered just when the bomb exploded, for it was clear now that it actually just imploded when Hawke managed somehow to put " **orgasm** " in a speech about religion.

"I have nothing else to say to you Hawke. Perhaps when you come to your senses, we can debate this in a serious manner. Goodbye!" Sebastian said angrily and went for the door.

Hawke shouted after him, "And by the way, since you said mages were the  _chosen ones_  to be unnatural, I can tell you this – this plight of being "chosen" has indeed been imposed on them as a challenge, NO! A punishment!  ** _And that's why mages' prayers are ever more valuable and deserving, as long as they are being addressed to an apparently ruthless and unforgiving god_** _._ "

Sebastian turned around and frowned at her, but didn't seem to be able to retort anything. Hawke was really a spit, apparently, in a magister and in a Chantry boy's face. He turned his back on her and saluted the others, then he was gone.

"Uh, Hawke," Varric said awkwardly. "Hawke?" No answer. She was petrified in her vertical, hands on the table position and staring at the wall as if it killed her mother. "Ok, no more Antivan brandy for you, EVER."

"You can't cut me off now, Varric. It was a punishment. My punishment is due," Hawke said knightly and bowed.

"It was a punishment a good four hours ago. Your sleep is due," Varric said angrily.

"No!" Hawke shouted childishly and crossed her arms.

Varric shook his head in outrage and gestured for Fenris to listen to him. "Elf, I know this is a lot to ask, but can you take her back home somehow? I have an appointment in the morning that really won't go well with a hungover apostate, if you get my drift."

"You're meeting with Templars now?" Fenris asked in suspicion and raised an accusatory eyebrow.

"Nothing fancy, I assure you. Now get her out of here," Varric demanded angrily.

"Fine," Fenris said grumpily and uncrossed his arms.


	18. In Vino Veritas?

**I WANT**  to be a saint. I want to save souls by millions. I want to do good far and wide, if I can. I want to fight evil! I want my life-sized statue in every town square, I'm talking five foot six tall, red hair, hazel eyes –

Wait a second,

What are you doing here?

Oh, well, Hawke here. Remember me? Of course you do, you've been reading about me through my friends' eyes for quite a while now! I don't think you'll get to know me better by hearing me, though.

Well, the only thing that brought me here - the only decisive thing – is that I am utterly drunk,  _deeply besotted_  and I just can't take it anymore! I  _want_  you to know me, see the world through my eyes – although I won't paint a very accurate picture, let's be serious, I'm drunk out of my mind! But no matter. I want this to be love at first sight.

Behold: your hero for the duration, an overly sarcastic human who doesn't give two spitting coppers over people's opinions on her! Nope. I'm free and I'm self-made. Well, it's not a great result though – I'm tormented by guilt, I have a moral abhorrence for myself that never goes away! But it's all hidden deep down and I never let anyone see it.

I'm not going to tell you why!

Well, not until further on.

But think it over, what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, apparently I'm a leader, appointed suddenly and silently by others. Oh, it's not so bad. That is, if you can resist everyone spitting in your face when things don't go their way. People take out their frustrations on me all the time! You know why? I don't. I can only suspect it's because I appear strong and resistant and a bit bossy, so it's like I welcome criticism wherever I go! No, no one lashes out on the nice persons, they go for the mean, careless one that has something to say about anything.

I'm monstrously strong. No, not like a demon or an abomination. Perish the thought. I hate those blighted things. You can't imagine how many of them disturb me in my sleep and try to talk me into letting them possess me. They try giving me riddles to lure me into their games, because I love riddles. But no, I don't give in. To be honest, even if I were born in the Imperium and was taught that blood magic is ok, I still wouldn't do it. Why do the thing everyone else does? No. I consider myself a non-conformist.

Oh, but I still hate magic in all its senses. Kind of contradictory isn't it? I root for the little guy, sure, I'm a mage myself, but I'm a bit of a cynic, I think. I still assume innocence first, it's only natural. Hah! I think you're confused to no end! Fenris certainly is. Oh, it was so fun in the beginning. One second he screams at me like a little porcupine that wants his lollipop, calling me 'clown mage' , 'witch', 'troll', 'fasta efututo femina' and other names in his language. The next second he's nice, listens to me, gives me a sort of, I suspect, illusion that he understands me? Imagine his rage, as he started to realize I'm not so bad. I think he was angrier about that, rather than the simple fact that I was a mage. Imagine my rage, as I can't give him a proper answer to his questions anyway!

Am I unique? By no means. There are certainly lots of other mages like me who don't use their powers and train in the painful arts of the sword. I don't know any, but I'd really like to.

Go ahead, close this tab! Spit on me. Revile me. I dare you. Cast me out of your intellectual orbit. Delete this story from your bookmarks or unfollow it.

No. I don't want you to do all that.

Don't do that.

**DON'T DO IT!**

I want you to know my story. Understand it; maybe you can. Of course you can.

I'm having fun, aren't you? Somehow I got both Anders and Fenris to hate my guts. Neither of them agreed with me. They considered me deprived and crazy. They probably both thought I was a hypocrite from their side of view on mages. Hey, what can you do? I'm not taking sides. They don't know what they're talking about!

People like me usually die young, but somehow I managed to survive. Not in the way I wanted to, but it could be worse. If you live longer than my age like this, and some do, who knows? You'll get tougher, stronger, more resistant, or more  _monstrous_. You'll know so much about suffering that you will go through rapid cycles of cruelty and kindness, insight and maniacal blindness.  _You'll probably go mad_. Then you'll be sane again. Then you may forget who you are.

 **And that scares the shit out of me**. With sprinkles and then some.

I don't want to use magic! But of course, the universe is little if at all known, apart from its extremely cruel sense of humor! Turns out I have to sometimes – and I have to train my powers for that. You know how annoying that is? Years and years of getting scratched, scarred, beaten, falling on the ground from the sword training and heavy armour, but no, I have to train in magic too. You know how difficult it is to try and concentrate on a single spell, because one wrong move can set the house on fire? My father gave up on it after a while, because I became insufferable - I know how to do that very well! But who can blame him. He didn't like it either. I think he felt some kind of relief.

But now I'm alone and I don't know what to do…

 **I'm going to take care of you in this chapter.**  So rest easy and read on. You won't be sorry. You think I don't want new readers? My name is thirst, baby. I must have you!

I'm kidding, I drank enough for tonight, I'm not thirsty anymore.

Yeah, I take care of everyone else in my group, but who's going to take care of me? I say I don't need help, but more because there's really no one who can help me in this little matter.

I don't know my present view of things. I like throwing fireballs from time to time – it's really entertaining and I PROMISE if I ever decide to swear off magic for good, the last thing I will use it for is to **SET FENRIS'S ASS ON FIRE**.

Oh, sure, he's my friend, I admitted it. Can't take it back now. But he gets me so mad sometimes. Not with the magic rant anymore, no, he started to cool off. For now…Well, don't be silly! Of course he's going to keep badgering me about it. But I think what grinds my gears about him is that he's so … Bah. What's the word? What's the  _nice_ word for it?

Independent. Little independent private Fenris. With his flat, unperturbed, dark look, that sometimes feels like he's stripping me with his mind. Who says two words like 'Good morning' and what he really means is 'It's not exactly good, but that's the appropriate salute as I understand. I am grumpy today, because I like water being wet, so I don't like things to change. I want to remain nonchalant and careless because I am a former slave. I don't want you touching me. Go away. But, well, you can stay… entertain me with your limited intelligence. I can still take pleasure in the small things.'

I don't even know what to make of him anymore! Sometimes he's nice, sometimes he turns into an irritating spiky hyena that won't shut up. Ah, what did I ever do to him?

But I digress, again, like the dwarves like to say.

So for some reason now he thinks it's nice to try and convince me to go home. What's he gonna do? Punch me unconscious and carry me to my room? He can never defeat me! Well… Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I did overpower him on the beach, but I'm so drunk now.

I'm BESOTTED!

So let me set the scenery … We are in the Hanged Man, right? It looks like it. It certainly  _smells_ like it.

"Allow me to escort you back to your mansion," Fenris said knightly as he approached me.

Do I look like a prize cow for the royal prince? Or maybe a little defenceless princess whose high heels you will have to carry because I can't walk in them anymore.

"I'd rather stay here and boil over that asshole," I said nonchalantly, staring at the wall.

"You can boil over it on the way home," he said flatly. I didn't look at him.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't dare to be insolent and displace my anger onto you on the way back," I said sarcastically, since he has done it so many times I've lost count.

He chuckled because he understood my subtlety, "You can try. I'm not made out of glass."

"Well with that impending argument," I said sarcastically. "Who can say no to free badgering."

I went to Varric and bend down to hug him. I needed it. He seemed surprised but couldn't say no to that. He pat me on the back three times and told me to watch my ass. Asschabs, why did I have to say that. I wonder if he feels confused that he has to Bianca's to love. Oh, I hate that name. Forget. Forget. Forget.

I tried my best to walk out of the tavern without tripping, holding to every table while Fenris remained silent and looked at me as if were a gigantic statue of Andraste that was about to fall down on the poor zealots.

We got out of the tavern and I looked for the closest wall I could hold on to. I dangled for a few feet and rushed to the wall to climb the stairs. I could feel Fenris stopping behind me with his arms crossed and a smug grin.

"Tell me when you're done," he said nonchalantly.

"It's called swaying," I said half-heartedly.

"It's called tripping on your feet," he retorted and came next to me.

"Aren't you afraid I'll fireball you by accident?" I asked him while trying not to hic.

"You're a witch and a drunk," he said meanly, but with a short smile he couldn't hide even from my impaired vision.

"You love me," I said childishly while grimacing and almost tripped.

He caught me quickly and forcefully placed my arm around his shoulder, and putting another on my hip. "Oh, my feelings for you go beyond cosmic proportions," he said sarcastically and proceeded to walk me forward.

Even in my drunkenness, I was scared out of my pants. Somehow I never managed to accidentally touch him on his markings or well, anything. Even now, I was holding onto his covered shoulder and tried to think of a good way to just run for the hills.

"Oh, I know I'm a bit high-maintenance but you're no better than me, Sir," I said in entertainment and realized I could barely hear myself. Everything sounded like out of a barrel.

"I did not advertise myself as otherwise," Fenris said flatly, squeezing my wrist up on his shoulder again since I was slipping.

"Well, it seems to me tha-

He pushed me away strongly and got out his sword. There was a group of lovely gentlemen in which he ran into like a blue-lit snowglobe. I fell like a dead corpse and hit my back into the wall. I tried to get up as one of those lovely gentlemen was shaking the ground with his fat pace to me. I grabbed onto his foot and Fenris's sword plunged in his back and went out his neck as he fell. He held the man on his collar and threw him to the closest wall like a dead weasel.

"Good call," I said half-stuttering. The whole of Lowtown was spinning with me.

He didn't say anything. He lifted me up by the wrists and I tripped heavily onto him and I felt his spiky gauntlet thrusting into a region far souther than my hip. "Woah, hello sailor," I said in amusement.

He quickly put his gauntlet away, raised it to my hip and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Forgive me," he said knightly, as if he had committed a crime.

As we managed to climb all the stairs without falling over each other and rolling over downhill again, we got into the Chantry square and I told him I needed to sit down. He rushed me to the stairs of High Estate District and put me down.

I took a few shots of air and cleared my head. Shit.

"Fucking Babette," I muttered.

"What?"

"Mother has the DeLauncet family over. It totally slipped my mind. Well, let's hope I don't puke on someone's shoes."

He sighed, "No."

"What do you mean no?"

"No as in you're not going home if your mother has company."

"Hey! I'm the proprietor of that house, I can walk in whenever I want, in whichever state I want."

"No, your mother owns the place since you're too lazy to put in your name."

I looked at him for two seconds in silence so he could catch my drift. "That's an astounding argument, Fenris," I said sarcastically.

He growled and rolled his eyes, "Just come with me," he said in annoyance and pulled me up by the wrist again. It was strange, but him dragging me by the wrist up to his mansion seemed, apart from childish and a bit painful, very…I was drunk, I didn't know the word. It was nice. Let's leave it at that.

"Woah, wait, wait," I said half-sleepily right before his door.

"What is it now?" he asked grumpily.

I dangled on for the bench at the ivy wall where I waited for him in my stupid, ridiculous clothes after I ran away from the ball. He followed me in silence, probably cursing at me in his mind. I searched for the paper and tobacco in my pack and started rolling one.

"May I ask what the hell you're doing?" Fenris asked me as he sat down next to me.

"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm rolling a – what's the word… cigarillo."

"Do I even want to know what that is?"

"You smoke it."

"You mean like those large brown things you drag and blow smoke with?"

"Yes, like that, only smaller and it doesn't kill you that fast."

"Why do you do that if it kills you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Everybody dies. What doesn't kill you on the spot isn't so bad."

"It's bad if it destroys your physical condition, on which you solely depend on as a fighter."

"Fighter, schmiter, I haven't smoked one in years and you barely find them anywhere but in Antiva," I said and he frowned at me. I drew an intentional fake smile. "I'm rich, suck it."

He shook his head and crossed his arms, looking in the distance. "Is this going to become a regular thing?"

I raised an eyebrow. "No. I'm not that stupid. I'm also not that rich," I said childishly as I finished making the cigarillo.

"Good," he said grumpily while remaining with his arms crossed.

"Oh, I'm sorry, how does this affect your already so affected life?" I asked sarcastically.

"It doesn't," he said flatly.

"You sure?" I said as I blew a circle in his face. He moved away from its trajectory and grimaced.

"Foolish," he muttered aggressively and shook his head.

"So we're both of a mind that I can go now, yes?" I said playfully before blowing out a tornado of small circles.

"You're not going anywhere," he said determinedly. "Not dead drunk and reeking of smoke."

"Well that concludes the mystery of Hawke being a lady or not," I said nonchalantly.

"Wasn't it you who said a model is just a cheap imitation of the real thing?"

I laughed, "Well I don't know how the real thing is like. You'll have to be the judge of that."

"Perhaps I will. Are you done?" he asked grumpily.

"Wanna see something cool?" I said playfully, ignoring him. He didn't answer. "Alright, since you're dying to know," I said sarcastically and took a large drag.

I concentrated as best as I could and blew out the smoke while with my left hand I played with a forcewave that formed a huge… well, let's say this is what a dragon would look like after it was beaten, tortured and malnourished for a thousand years. And it had only one horn. In a split second I tried to save the moment and created a small fireball in the air that looked as if it was breathed out by the dragon.

"Impressive," he said, after flinching a bit at the sight of the fire.

"I told you it would be cool," I said confidently.

"Is this the way in which you are training your powers? Because it would be a sad state of affairs when I'm not a mage, and yet I'm bringing reason to this particular equation."

I frowned and turned to him. "It's not," I said in a determined voice and narrowed my eyes at him. "And you never let me have any fun."

He chuckled softly and looked at me, "I  _think_ that's for the best."

"Poor Hawke. Deeply disturbed and irrevocably crazy. What is she going to do without Fenris to be the royal buzzkill and pain in her ass, which as of late is open for accidental cupping, apparently."

"Oh? It seems I've climbed the ladder from my original position," he said sarcastically.

"From major to royal? You bet," I said grumpily and threw what was left of the improvised filter.

"Are you done? I'm tired."

"Too tired to cup another feel?" I asked childishly.

He frowned and got up, then sighed and pulled me up too. My drunken state and the inertia were not playing for the right team, because I tripped against him and he had to catch me again. As he caught me by the ribs, my hand landed somewhere unintentionally and I could have sworn these would be the last seconds of my life. But my reason was long past its normal 'barely there' and I just stood there with my gauntlet on his behind and he was frowning colossaly at me.

"You know how it goes. An eye for an eye, a cheek for a cheek," I said confidently and grinned at him.

He gave me a homicidal look and if I were in my right mind, this was the time to take a run for it. Instead I just stood there being eyed by an elf who was probably going to implode inside, strike a fist in my heart and having to explain later to my mother that he got mad at me for touching him inappropriately so he had to kill me.

His look grew darker and he pressed his lips angrily. I felt his hand moving away from where he was holding me and I flinched defensively and landed with my back against the wall, since I thought he was going to strike me. As if a wall would help. Instead, his gauntlet reached for my own behind and the spikes hurt like hell because apparently he didn't shy away from squeezing it forcefully. His face was screaming ferocious murder just a few inches away from mine.

"You let go, I let go," he said in a deep voice as he eyed me insistently.

"You're not very good at this game," I said confidently and chuckled. "I could stay like this all night."

He gave me a dark, sensual smirk and placed his other hand against the wall near my face, "So can I. It's certainly not an unpleasant sensation," he said nonchalantly.

Better switch strategies.

"Fenris," I said slowly while grinning. "Who would have thought?"

His grin started to disappear and his eyebrows lifted shortly as I reached for his ear and half-whispered, "I hope you realize I'm besotted out of my mind and I won't remember this in the morning. My last voice of reason that is going to die in the next seconds reminds you that you're crossing the line from playful to taking advantage of very quickly."

He eyed me with a dark look and I felt his breath on my neck as his lips reached for my ear. Suddenly fear was not the strongest sensation I felt, and it wasn't in my legs either. "Then let  _go_ ," he said nonchalantly, his dark grin coming back.

That's it. That's all I remember.

Sorry to disappoint.

I lied. I LIED.

I'm not going to properly take care of you in this chapter.

Oh, now you really wish Fenris narrated this, don't you? Bah.

Wait 'til you hear his load of crap.

* * *

 

**Sunrise, Fenris's Mansion**

Oh, the soft breeze of nothing... it was marvellous, and Maker that feel of the cigarillo smoke that I hadn't tasted in years and oh, the smell of strawberries and,

BANG

I fell out of bed, hitting my head to the floor, covered in the sheets. And oh… OH. The pain…

The door opened and I turned my head up from the ground to see Fenris with his vest undone standing in the doorway. No gauntlets, no pads, just a whole lotta different, fishbone-like markings on his shoulders and arms. The light coming out from the hallway blinded me and I growled.

"What are you doing in my house?" I demanded, half-stuttering.

"You asked me to redecorate it so it would be the spitting image of my mansion," Fenris said sarcastically and grabbed me by the wrist to get me up. I didn't realize at first, but as I let go of the sheets I was standing in my black smallclothes so I immediately covered myself with the sheet again and he coughed awkwardly, looking away.

"Andraste's flaming butt, what happened last night?" I asked in outrage.

Fenris chuckled softly, "You drank, you dangled, you fainted."

"You really don't like storytelling do you?" I asked sarcastically. My eyes widened suddenly. Open vest, me half-naked,  _his_ room. Oh no…

"I prefer to stick with the cold truth, so there's no means of embellishment," he said flatly, resuming his nonchalant statue position.

"Fenris you have three seconds to clarify what else happened, with or without embellishment," I demanded firmly.

He lifted his eyebrows, opened his mouth and looked away. "No- nothing else happened."

I frowned and squeezed my sheets that were wrapped around me and stood my ground. "Then why am I almost naked?"

"You get hot during the nigh- , how should I know?" he said angrily and frowned.

"This is your room. The premises expect  _you_ to know."

"You crawled in here saying it's the only room you like and smashed the door in my face. You're the only one who should know."

"I did?" I asked bewilderedly and lifted my eyebrows. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," he sighed. "I'm the idiot that insisted you don't go home."

"Wait. You took care of me?"

"Is there something in that sentence that seems too complex for you to grasp?"

"Uh, yes," I said and raised an eyebrow. "I barge in here uninvited all the time and disturb your peace."

"And what does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't even know what I'm saying. My head is exploding."

He left without a word and closed the door. Ah, great. I offended him again. How do I always manage to do that… I rapidly put my griffon chainmail robe back on and lifted my pants up while almost tripping over them. When I started to put my boots back on the door opened. Fenris walked to this table and placed two cups of something on it.

"Please," he said knightly and gestured at the cups.

I sat down and smelled the cup suspiciously and he frowned at me. "What?"

"It's just green tea, for the love of –"

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," he said commandingly and took a sip from the cup.

"I'm sorry," I said childishly and smiled.

He laughed shortly and contained his smirk. "You are unbelievable."

"What did I do?" I asked playfully.

"What didn't you do," he said nonchalantly, shaking his head.

"Please don't tell me I forced myself onto you and you  _refused._ "

He gave me an arrogant smirk. "Would that be such a tragedy?"

"Well – yes, of course. That would be the cherry on top of all tragedies."

"Men dying in wars and children starving on the street, taken away from their mothers, but my rejecting your attempt of seduction is still the worst of all tragedies."

"Cut the crap, Fenris. Did I or did I not?"

"Who said  _you_  did anything?" he asked nonchalantly.

"What?"

"I'm kidding. Nobody attempted anything on anybody."

"Well that's a sha-… I mean, good," I said awkwardly and cleared my throat. "Wait a second… I assaulted you last night."

He chuckled softly. "It was more of a mutual assault."

"Is that why I don't remember anything else? Did you punch it out of me?"

He looked up and raised an eyebrow. "In retrospect, that would have probably been the wisest idea."

"Then what happened?" I asked angrily.

He smirked. "What do you think? I won."

"What do you mean you won?"

"After a very questionable while, you eventually," he smirked, "let go."

"Bullshit."

"Believe what you will."

"That's not the whole story."

He laughed. "Do you think I would make it that easy for you to win a perfectly solemn bet we sealed with a perfectly dignified handshake?"

"Wait. So you're  _making it_ hard? Like, you're  _making_ it – anything?" I asked bewilderedly, as if I just realized something.

He grinned shortly and looked down, then back up at me. "Can I admit something to you without you getting the wrong idea?"

"I… think so?" I said an raised an eyebrow.

He gave me a dark and piercing half-smile. "You're adorable."

"Excuse me?" I asked in outrage.

"I don't need to repeat myself," he said flatly and took another sip of his tea.

"If I weren't hungover I would so beat the crap out of you right now."

"Exactly my point."

"Oh, bugger off."

* * *

 

**Somewhere In Time, Sunrise, Ending up hungover again at Fenris**

Fenris took a sip of the now traditional hangover tea. "I seem to recall a certain promise you made to me," he said, grinning to no end.

"I make a lot of promises. You'll have to refresh my memory."

"You said you would offer your hand at helping with my back problem."

"Oh, sure. After so many refusals. Why not? Kick a man when he's down."

"What does that mean?"

"Hungover and ready to be killed. Always a pleasure."

"I didn't mean now, necessarily."

I grinned. "Well, what the hell… Since you don't let me flirt with you, I might as well just flirt with death."

He gestured to bring it on. "By all means, flirt. I'm curious how you can even manage that."

I frowned at him and said firmly, "Just shut up and get on the bed."

He snorted at the irony of my comment. As if that's the best I could do. Oh, you want flirting? I'll give you flirting. You'll fall in love with me by the end of this very morning, you arrogant whiteheaded bastard.

"I don't see you on the bed, Fenris. Or do you prefer you sit with your face down on this narrow bench?"

"No, I'd prefer the bed."

"Then take you shirt off and go already."

"I don't know if that's the wisest way to go."

I searched my mind for a while. "Your markings…?"

He sighed. "Yes, my markings."

"Fine, leave it on."

He laid on the bed facedown and I couldn't help but say a short prayer in my head. I lifted my sleeves and… hello there. No, stop it. Fenris's ass is not the thing that you have to take care of right now. Get yourself together, woman.

I blew hot air into my palms and rubbed them a few too many times, and then

"Whenever you're ready. This year, if it's not too much to ask."

"Sir, yes, Sir," I said sarcastically. "I'm going for the shoulders, just as a heads-up."

"Have at it. Good luck," he said nonchalantly and put his hands under his chest.

I do need some luck; luck would be nice.

I placed my hands on the back of his shoulders and squeezed, then placed my thumbs on his neck and pressed on his skin gently. He didn't move or say anything, which was a good sign. Unless I accidentally pressed a blind point and put him to sleep. I tried not to breathe too heavily and went down to his scapula.

"Maker's butthole, that's a stiff back," I said in amazement. "How do you even move in combat?"

"I'm an elf," he muttered and I could feel him rolling his eyes. "We were born flexible."

"Good to know," I said, thinking out loud and quickly tried to think of a continuation. "I could have you join me at the Circus. We're short on handsome flying acrobats."

"Imagine that," he said sarcastically in his grumpy voice.

His vest was so thick I could barely do anything. I pressed as hard as I could all around his back. He growled suddenly, "Just undo the straps. This is pointless."

"You wanna die in pain?" I asked him angrily.

"I'm used to it," he said knightly, with an obvious hint of bitterness.

I undid his vest and swallowed heavily, for not only did those markings seem strange and demonic, for lack of a better word, but his back was also filled with firm, sculptured muscles, almost glowing in that tan skin of his. He was breathtaking, but I despised the markings. Isabela couldn't shut up about how sexy those tattoos looked, but I had never agreed – and now I couldn't disagree more strongly again. It was a graphic, macabre symbol of a curse all over his body, masked by a seemingly pleasant, flowing design. And that didn't make it any easier on his pain from them. No, it was a curse he had to bear every day.

I concentrated carefully and tried to touch only the space between the markings. He didn't have many on his back – just a few around the ribs and two on the back of his shoulders. I pressed freely now and he didn't seem to protest, so I continued.

"What's wrong?" he asked suddenly.

"Nothing, it's not important."

"Hawke."

"My back is starting to hurt from this position. It's a bit uncomfortable standing."

"Then stop."

"Would you strike me if I said there's another solution? But you might not like it."

He chuckled, understanding my drift. "By all means… ride me like a horse," he probably said sarcastically.

"I don't really know if you were sarcastic or not."

"I… don't know either. But we've already embarked on the boat of the utterly ridiculous. This might not make such a big difference."

"Tell my mother I love her, alright?"

"I will."

I climbed on top of him and he groaned. "Thank the gods you're wearing light armor."

"Insulting the service provider is usually not the way to go if you want to survive while you're under them," I said grumpily.

"My apologies," he said nonchalantly and turned his head with a grin. "You're light as a feather."

"So… really? How come you're not killing me or something?"

"Killing the service provider is usually not the way to go when you want your problem fixed," he imitated me in amusement.

"If this is a dream," I started sarcastically and sighed. "I need better dreams."

"I assume by 'better' you mean the bed-breaking kind of dreams?"

"Yes, exactly so. And apparently only you can provide that, how lucky of me!"

"Are you subtly trying to hire me for that service?"

"I'm sorry. Did you hire me to fix your back?"

He laughed softly. "Then I suppose I shall have to be a charity."

"I don't take charity," I said firmly, and squeezed his skin a bit too hard, but he didn't flinch.

"Well, now I just feel foolish," he said nonchalantly, pertaining to how he was accepting charity.

I frowned. "What I'm doing for you is not a charity. It's out of honest desire to see you better and maybe perish that hideous humpback look of yours. Yours would be a charity."

"Do I look like a woman?" he asked angrily.

I chuckled. "It would certainly explain why you whine and complain all the time."

I could feel him rolling his eyes. "Never mind."

For a while longer, we didn't speak. I concentrated on my work and when I was done, he seemed to be dead, "Uh… Fenris?"

"Mmm..," he just muttered in a sleepy voice.

I swung on the side and sat on the bed, looking at him. He seemed so peaceful and … cute. He was either enveloped in utter relaxation or I simply killed him.

"I take it I've done a pretty good job," I said happily.

He groaned again and opened his eyes, "You have no idea."

* * *

 

**Somewhere In Time, The Hanged Man**

"A little bird told me there was a noble woman spotted leaving a certain Tevinter elf's mansion a few times in the morning," Varric said charmingly as I drank my beer and I immediately choked on it and spilled it out.

"You're spying on me again? Is that some silent punishment from the last ten you said you'd keep for 'rainy days'?" I asked defensively in an angry tone.

"No, of course not. Please," Varric said charmingly. "Just keeping an eye out for my favourite crazy human."

"Sure," I said and narrowed my eyes. "I bet you know what colour my smallclothes are too."

"That's all Rivaini," Varric said confidently. "What do you take me for?"

"You mean apart from being an overly nosy dwarf obsessed with control?" I asked sarcastically.

"Cut the crap and explain yourself, Pantaloons," he said charmingly and took a sip from his pint.

"There's nothing to explain," I said firmly.

"You can't bullshit the bullshitter, Hawke."

I sighed. "If I tell you will you please keep it to yourself? As in  _just_ to yourself. No realistic or wild stories."

"Sure. Your secret's safe with me. As well as your walk of shame," he said warmly.

"Walk of shame? Ugh, you're getting this all wrong," I said grumpily.

"Maybe you're getting it all wrong. There's only so many answers to the question 'Why are you spending nights in a man's house?'"

"He asked me to help with his back problem. So I did. I'm nice. End of story."

He laughed heavily. "Right, that's all there is to the story. You can give me a tiara and call me the Princess of Orzammar."

"I thought you didn't have princesses in Orzammar."

"Talk, Pantaloons."

"Look, there's nothing more to it. We leave The Hanged Man and walk home together, out of plain necessity and sometimes he invites me for drinks and –"

"And?"

"And I rub his stiff back until he falls asleep. End of story."

"Then why did you sometimes leave in the morning?"

"Because I'm too tired or buzzed so I just go into the next room and sleep it off. We wake up and drink tea, then I'm out of there."

Varric's eyebrow drew so high it almost went out of its orbit. "You're shitting me."

"I shit you not," I said warmly and shrugged.

"So there's nothing going on? You just talk, drink and occasionally you touch him and he  _lets_ you."

"It's just his back for pit's sake. What do you take me for?" I asked angrily.

"A doofus who doesn't realize the angsty Tevinter elf next door has the hots for you."

"Right. 'Cause that's what men do when they crush on a woman. They ask for back rubs and then say goodbye."

Varric chuckled, "Well what do you expect? He's not your ordinary heartbreaker."

"Varric," I sighed. "I'm not even sure he knows what that means."

"Of course he doesn't," he said charmingly. "You might just have to spell it out for him."

"Me?" I asked in outrage. "He can sort his own intimate problems."

"Are you seriously trying to bullshit me into thinking you don't want to touch each other in your special places while you're 'fixing his back problem'?" he asked in amusement.

"He could have asked for it a lot of times and he didn't."

"Ask?" Varric laughed. "You're adorable, Hawke."

"Say that one more time and I'll cut you," I said angrily.

Varric raised his hands in peace. "Look, Miss Purity, can I ask just how much you drink with him?"

"Like the amount?" I asked bewilderedly.

"Yeah, like how shitfaced you get at his place."

"Not much. Two glasses of wine maybe."

Varric said in amusement, "Well there you go. You need to get him drunk to see what he really wants."

I raised an eyebrow, "I'm not interested in what he 'really wants'."

"When you're done lying to yourself, listen to my advice – I'll make sure all of us somehow become busy at Satinalia. He's not going to shy away from alcohol in a place he'd find utterly ridiculous and enraging."

"I hope there's more to this – like how we'll even convince him to  _go_ to Satinalia."

"What's the big deal? He's done it before. Then again, we stood in a bazar and sold junk the whole night, but at least he didn't blow up and killed everybody, so I think he's good to go."

I crossed my arms. "You've overlooked the part where _I_  would blow up in such a place."

"Oh, Hawke, I know you're a rebel little boy queen, but it won't kill you to throw on a dress and strap on a pair. See? You'll still be the best of both worlds."

"Absolutely and positively no," I said firmly and crossed my arms.

"Positively no," Varric chuckled. "That's exactly what this is," he gestured dramatically. "DENIAL."

"Since when are you so psychoanalytic?" I asked perceptively.

"It's a vicious cycle," Varric said charmingly. "You'll get used to it."


	19. Satinalia: In Vino Almost Veritas

**Satinalia, Night, Hawke's Estate**

"Varric, what the hell!" Hawke screamed angrily and covered herself as he barged into her room.

"Out of pure friendly concern just checking with utmost patience and ever so gracefully WHAT THE HELL IS TAKING YOU SO LONG," he said while covering his eyes sweetly.

"Get out," Hawke said firmly. "I was just getting ready."

"Nope," Varric said sweetly. "I'm not going out of here until you're done. Tell me when that is, 'cause my face is falling asleep."

"Done," she said grumpily. Varric uncovered his eyes and saw her in a black vest over a white shirt and black pants.

He chuckled, "Pantaloons, you're not going out dressed manlier than myself alone. Change."

"Who told you to put on an embroidered shirt?" she asked angrily. "Not my fault you wanna look like a princess."

"The damage is done, my friend. Too late," Varric said charmingly. "Now put on a dress and let's go already."

Hawke burst into laughter. "Dress? You think I own a dress?"

"No, I guessed that much," Varric said in amusement. "Look into your bottom drawer."

Hawke narrowed her eyes. "You're an obsessive control freak and you should get yourself checked."

"I'm not crazy; my mother had me tested," Varric said and chuckled.

"And  _where_ did she have you 'tested'?" she asked in amusement.

Varric hesitated sweetly, "Not important. Now go look into that drawer."

She sighed and opened the drawer, getting out a short crimson red velvet dress with just a few flower embroideries on the shoulder sleeve. "You're joking," she said revolted.

"I joke about a lot of things, but not about a pretty dress on a beautiful woman," Varric said charmingly.

"Dear sweet Varric," she said dramatically. "How do I put this in the nicest way possible - Hells to the no to the never ever  _ever_."

Varric sighed, "Why do you have to make this so hard for me?"

Hawke widened her eyes and squeezed the dress in her hands, "You wouln't."

Varric gave her an evil grin, "You know I would. So I'm giving you ten seconds to decide if you do it voluntarily or I compel you to. So ten,"

"I-" Hawke stuttered.

He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Eight, seven…"

"Can't I just-"

Varric ignored her. "…Five, four."

"Can I at least wear it with pants?"

"Three-two-"

"FINE."

"Aaand we're done, ladies and gentlemen. Put it on and NO, you may not wear it with ' _pants',_ " Varric said mockingly and frowned.

"Oh fuck the eighteen generations of your ancestors, you evil sick son of a bitch."

"Curse at me all you want, Hawke. You'll thank me later."

"At least get out of my room until I change," Hawke said defensively and gestured for him to leave.

Varric snorted, "You take me for a fool, Chuckles? I know you can climb up the fireplace."

"Or I can just beat the crap out of you. I just have to take one step and you're dead as a doorknob," Hawke said aggressively and clenched her fists.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her blankly, then quickly burst into laughter. "Oh, you're killing me, Hawke. That was cute."

"I'm about to," Hawke said violently in a low voice.

"Right. And I'm a six foot tall black-haired stud and they call me Marcelino Caliente."

She narrowed her eyes. "Muy muerto, señor" she growled homicidally.

* * *

 

**One day before, Fenris's Mansion**

"I shit you not, elf," Varric said charmingly. "She found  _all_ their hiding places. And come on, she found her brother without a dime of information. I tell you, elf, if Hawke was an Imperial soldier sent after you she would have found you a good three years ago."

"Perhaps I should be grateful for the small things," Fenris said grumpily, discarding a song card.

"Perhaps you should," Varric said in amusement. "Well now that I think about it, if Hawke was an Imperial soldier and she looked after you across Thedas, I think the moment she found you she would have a form of crisis of conscience and decide to leave that relentless life. She's always going to be a good person. Well, after you engage in a night of mindblowing angry hate-sex on the roof of some abandoned tavern where you'd be hiding, of course."

Fenris raised an eyebrow, "You really have a clearly titanic amount of imagination, don't you?"

Varric grinned and looked at his cards, "Oh, I embellish from already existing facts. It's no fun to make up something with no basis of reality."

"And how does this have anything to do with reality?" Fenris asked and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you're friends, and you're a man and she's a woman and – "

"And that just automatically transgresses to 'mindblowing angry hate-sex' on the roof of a tavern, no matter who she is, where she comes from and however we meet," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Pretty much," Varric said charmingly.

Fenris remained unimpressed and with a grumpy look. "You're a very odd dwarf".

"I'm just messing with ya, elf," Varric said in entertainment and discarded a knight. "You wouldn't have a shot with Hawke in a million years."

Fenris frowned and Varric tried to mask his grin with the cards. "What is she, the Empress of Orlais?"

"Nope," Varric said sweetly. "But you may have noticed she's a bit… what's the nice word for it?"

"Impossible? More than flesh and blood alone can stand?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

"Nope, that's not it," Varric said and cupped his maxillary.

"Enough to try the patience of a saint?" Fenris continued sarcastically and took another card.

"Tough and self-sufficient," Varric said and threw a card on the table.

"I don't follow," Fenris asked nonchalantly.

"She's a leader with a lot on her plate. Like  _awfully_ lot. Everyone's shouting 'Hawke to the rescue!' and chasing after her for help, while she already has enough trouble as it is. You understand?"

"Hardly," Fenris said sarcastically, pertaining to the fact that he simply didn't understand what that had to do with him.

"Have you seen her with anybody since we met? I didn't. Not even an innocent flirtation. Nothing," Varric said perceptively and took a card from the deck. "I don't know. All I'm saying is she's the kind of girl that takes care of everybody and in turn, nobody's really taking care of her. Whoever's willing to take on that kind of challenge has to really know what he's doing. Or she. No judgmenet."

"I still don't follow," Fenris said and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't get me wrong, elf, you're the strongest most resistant person I know besides her, it's just," Varric said and paused.

"Just?" Fenris said and waited almost with a homicidal look.

"Angel of Death. Show your hand," Varric said, ignoring him.

"I have four knights, I win. Just what?" Fenris asked insistently, but with a mask of perfect nonchalance.

"Well… I don't see you having the balls for it. To make it as clear as day," Varric said charmingly. "Good game."

Fenris struck him a murderous look for a second, then resumed his flat appearance. "All that time blabbering and wasting precious minutes when you could have just said so."

"You know I like hearing the sound of my voice, elf," Varric said firmly. "Anyway, another game?"

"Sure," Fenris said and leaned forward to get the cards. Varric noticed Fenris's sudden willingness to shuffle the cards instead of him usually doing it and grinned.

"So, I'm thinking of getting another earring pierced at Satinalia. You coming to see my pain?"

"You know me, I always enjoy watching the suffering of others," Fenris said sarcastically and almost bitterly.

"Oh come on, elf, at least this time we'll get to drink our asses off and laugh at snobby nobles as they faint on the ground. Hawke's probably gonna be there to supply us with the liquor and the fun, as it _should_ have been a year ago."

Fenris snorted. "She wouldn't go to a ridiculous carnival if she had to."

"I'm sorry, did I die and suddenly you're her best pal? I'm telling you she's gonna come. Maybe even in a dress."

Fenris laughed. "If she comes without being punished by you  _in a dress_ I'm going to climb on the roof and howl at the moon in my birthday clothes."

Varric chuckled, "Careful with your promises, elf. Although can't lie, I'd pay to see that."

Fenris discarded a serpent and smirked. "Alas, you will never get to."

"I'll bet you 50 silvers she's coming in a dress. Don't tell me you wouldn't go just to see that abomination of the earth… Oops, poor choice of words, but you get it."

"No, that's quite accurate. She would have to become possessed to wear a dress."

"Well, I like to think that she's not a man with incredibly soft skin and a questionably large bosom," Varric said sarcastically. "You in or what?"

"50 silvers. No punishment. Although I think even so, she would draw the line there and beat it out of you."

"If you see me bruised and scarred, consider the bet void."

"No. If you're beaten, you owe me twice the coin. Even a slap on the face counts."

"50 silvers and you have to wear a rose in your belt if I win. I just love seeing you pretty as a little flower."

"75 silvers and you wear that thorny rose as a necklace if I win."

"Fine," Varric said grumpily.

* * *

 

**Sunset, Hightown Square**

"Elf?... Elf!" Varric shouted at Fenris who remained lost for words and movement, his mouth opened shortly.

"So, are we going to sit here and look like sissies or are we gonna go and drink like true warriors?" Hawke asked confidently, seeming even more genuinely bone-hard and tough in her red velvet dress.

As Fenris got a hold of himself, he reached into his pocket and gave Varric the coin and received from him the stupid rose. They did everything very quickly while Hawke was looking behind her for the others.

"We're running short of one person, but oh, what the hell, open that bottle," Varric said charmingly and gestured at Hawke's expensive champagne bottle.

"Who else is coming?" Hawke asked bewilderedly.

"Blondie and I  _think_ Daisy, but I'm not sure. She said the red lanterns and flying paperbirds scare her."

"Anders is coming? Boy am I gonna make fun of him if he shows up in a festive mandress," Hawke said in amusement.

Varric raised an eyebrow. "Go look in the mirror, Hawke."

"I don't need to. I look tough in anything, whereas Anders looks sassy and girly even if you put pants on him and make him grow a beard."

Fenris snorted and remained silent.

"Let's just sit on the bench for now. Perfect view of the show they're putting on by the Keep," Varric said and took the lead.

"Wooh, who are you and what have you done with creepy Red Manlengs, Hawke?" Isabela said as she came by the fountain wearing almost nothing, as always. That almost nothing had a cleavage visible from Antiva.

"Yes, behold. I have legs," Hawke said sarcastically. They weren't very muscular. They were pale and looked positively fragile in that dress, Fenris thought.

The city square could not have been more beautifully adorned. Right in the middle, the four great stone ivy columns were wrapped into red and green garlands and festoons of different shapes and sizes. Some were simply resembling geometrical shapes, others were in the form of birds, roses and leaves. Added to the mystique, blue, red and lanterns of other colours were hanging low and high everywhere you looked. By the Keep, there was some sort of play being performed.

"Hawke, is that the Hero of Ferelden?" Varric asked.

Hawke flipped and got up quickly, "What, where?!" Fenris swallowed heavily in silence as his eyes wondered (questionably) quick to the red velvet dress that gave a faint, but firm outline of her -

"Come back and calm thy titties, I meant in the play over there."

"Oh…," Hawke said awkwardly and scratched her head. "Right. Well –"

"It's her alright, but poorly depicted. The real one is much more beautiful," Anders said as he came by the fountain wearing dark blue garments. Hawke turned around to see him and he continued, "As are you, Hawke. I'd never pictured you in a dress, and a short girly dress of all things."

"It's not girly," Hawke said and frowned.

"Keep telling yourself that," Varric said sweetly while holding the bottle. "Do the honours already?"

"Aveline! Wait, wait ,wait," Hawke shouted after her as she was patrolling with Donnic. "Come here, we're about to make a toast."

"Then where are the glasses?" Aveline asked flatly, trying not to laugh.

Hawke looked down. "Right. I'll be right back."

"So, Red, not in the mood for a pretty dress?" Varric asked mockingly.

"I'm on duty, Varric," Aveline said grumpily.

"But you've got a man stud patrolling with you and I'll be damned if anyone can take you down, even unarmoured," Varric said charmingly.

"Rest assured, while that is very true, the Captain has to take care of us more than we take care of everything else," Donnic said in amusement.

"Well when you put it like that, it just sounds like I'm your nanny," Aveline said in amusement.

"You know that's not true, Captain," Donnic said questionably warmly and Varric raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, Elgar'nan, there you are. I've been wondering Hightown for an hour looking for you," Merrill said as she came by.

"What did I tell you about using that ball of twine I gave you, Daisy?" Varric said fatherly as he gestured for home to sit next to him.

"Always use it?" Merrill said awkwardly. "It would be shattered in seconds in this crowd, Varric."

"Then what did I tell you to do when you find yourself in these situations?" Varric asked sweetly.

"Come to The Hanged Man and look for you," Merrill said.

"Next time, please for the love of my ancestors, do that."

"Oh, Varric, it's not like anything bad happened to me."

Varric sighed, "I know, Daisy. And that 'nothing' is costing me a fortune.

Hawke came out of her estate with a box of glasses and put it on the ground. Then she got the bottle from the dwarf's hands, which was tied beautifully with a red ribbon.

"Alright. When I untie this ribbon, rest assured, we're concluding another tiresome year of crazy adventures and a hell of a lot of fun together," Hawke said warmly and undid the ribbon.

She instinctively went for the cork but then remembered she had no gauntlets. She looked at Fenris and he nodded knighly, getting up.

"Wait, don't break it open," Hawke said calmly. "I want to do the honours."

"I'll try," Fenris said flatly. He pushed the cork as gently as he could and gave the bottle to Hawke. She nodded as a thank you and gave him the ribbon to hold for her, then looked at everybody.

"Anybody want to make a wish before I do this?" she asked in amusement.

"I wish I'd be wearing more comfortable pants," Varric said sarcastically.

"Don't say it out loud else it won't come true," Hawke said warmly and eyed everyone again. "Ready? Made your wish?"

She punched the cork open and champagne came splashing out on the ground. "Ok, quick, quick, quick, I'm losing precious substances here!"

"A toast for another incredible year at your side, Hawke. Good to have you back," Varric said warmly.

"Don't make this about me, Varric. A toast for every one of you crazy bitches! And Donnic," she said sarcastically and he smiled and nodded.

They got up in a circle and hit their glasses together. Everyone started talking to one another and the noise was rather the same as always, endearing and irritating at the same time. Hawke caught Fenris's smart choice to tie the glass with the red ribbon and smiled, hitting her glass in his again. He smiled shortly and they drank the glass empty.

"Good thing you saved it," Hawke said to Fenris. "It's the same lucky charm I tie to my 'gigantic knife'."

"Then I shouldn't leave it on the glass," he said flatly and untied it. He gave his glass to her and she frowned in bewilderedness, as he tied the ribbon to his pocket where the rose was hanging.

"There, much better," he said and smiled, while he caught her blushing.

After a while, Varric and Isabela insisted that Merrill joined hands with them and dance in circles. At one point, even Anders got convinced.

"Is that what frolicking's supposed to look like?" Hawke asked Fenris, interrupting him from his thoughts.

"I really don't want to find out," Fenris said grumpily and shook his head at them as they gestured for him to join.

"How did that Qunari philosophy go again? If I fight, then I'm not a woman? Then you don't frolic, so it follows that you can't be an elf," Hawke said in amusement and crossed her arms.

"That would be perfect," Fenris said flatly. "I don't even want to be an elf."

"And I don't want to be a woman," she said in a bitter smile, since they both said things that masked an even deeper desire – that he wished he wasn't a slave and she wished she wasn't a mage. "Alas, we can't always get what we want."

"To unfair lives," Fenris said knightly and hit his glass in Hawke's.

"And deeply disturbed friends," she said in amusement and smiled warmly at him, after raising an eyebrow at the others' dance. "Let's ditch them and see what's going on at the smithy over there."

They tried to elbow their way through the flaming crowd and Hawke stopped and got a hold of Fenris. "Or maybe we should just go back before we get crushed to bits."

Fenris smirked, "Please." He grabbed her wrist quickly and dragged her through the crowd carefully. This was nothing compared to the crowds he had to take Danarius through in Minrathous. Of course, he didn't drag him by the hand, instead just kicking and elbowing everything, if not outright punching the wild people that tried to attack them. Somehow he thought to himself he made the right decision when he left his spiked shoulder pads at home.

The smithy was apparently holding duel competitions. They didn't know for sure if they were performers or actual fighters, but nevertheless, they watched as two men swiftly battled each other without even giving one another a single scratch.

"This is awesome," Hawke said childishly. "I wonder if there's a prize."

"I think those crests over there are. It's a tradition to for the winner to get a hand-made and painted family crest," Fenris said as he pointed to the stand.

"Hm," she said and grinned at him. "How 'bout that duel you promised me?"

"You mean like a thousand years ago?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes that's the one," she said in amusement.

"Let's see. I will definitely win and then you'll beat me to death because I ripped your dress to bits. No, thank you," he said grumpily.

"I bet you the prize that you won't even get to scratch it," Hawke said confidently and smiled.

"So I get the prize either way?" Fenris asked while raising an eyebrow.

"I don't care for a stupid prize. I care for the fun of the actual duel."

"Very well, Hawke. If you want to embarrass yourself in front of hundreds of people, I'll most happily oblige," he said arrogantly and smirked.

"You're on, elf," she said determinedly and went to the smithy to sign them up.

When the fight was over, the smithy told them they could choose from the swords he had on stand. Hawke suddenly struck a silvery grin and asked, "Are dual weapons allowed?"

"Anything is allowed, but are you sure you want to fight the lad with daggers?" the smithy asked her with concern.

"Not daggers, my good man, longswords," she said in amusement.

The smithy uncrossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, "So just to be clear – longswords and not broadswords."

"I'm a dignified greatsword wielder, old man, I know what I'm saying."

"Then shouldn't I interest you in a greatsword? I've got one that would really go with your –"

"No, I want to try something different tonight. Oh, I'll also need gauntlets, but that's about it." Hawke said confidently.

"And you're going in dressed like that?" the smithy asked her.

"Why not let my friend think he has a chance here and put on a show for a while?" she said confidently.

"As you wish," the smithy said and went to grab her two silver swords while shaking his heads at the thought of what a lunatic she was, probably.

Fenris also shook his head in amazement. She was crazy. Not only would he have to try not to kill her, he was certain that dress would be cut to bits even if he didn't try to.

"Whenever you're ready," Hawke said smiling as she interrupted him from his thoughts.

The smithy came in the middle and cleared his throat, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are now welcoming to the 'arena' a most curious couple of rivals – the Red Fury of Ferelden and Mister… Fister!"

They assumed their positions and she swung her swords in the air confidently. Fenris held on to his greatsword and swallowed heavily, waiting for the man to call it. The smithy walked out of the circle and gestured that the fight began.

They walked in circles a bit, him overly careful and her simply swaying confidently and grinning at him. Seeing as how she knew he wouldn't charge first, she went into him and they started hitting their swords into one another swiftly. She ducked down every time he swung the sword at her head and he jumped when she tried to dual sweep at his feet. She rushed with her swords into him and he barricaded them with his sword, both of them pressing on as hard as they could. He pushed harder and she backed off slowly, then gestured to come right at her. He charged rapidly at her and she caught his greatsword with her two weapons, then swung them on the side and kicked him in the stomach. The people watching were cheering and gasping at every move.

He backed off and eyed her insistently. This was harder than he thought it would be. There and then she proved all the more effectively just how calculated and disciplined she was. For a second, he somehow felt proud to have such an opponent.

They met with their swords again and as he tried to sweep her off her feet, she dropped her swords and jumped with her hands on his shoulders and tumbled and landed behind him, kicking him as she landed. The inertia made him fall and she quickly got her blades back. She stuck out her tongue and raised one sword in the air as a taunt. Fenris grinned at her as he got up and pretended to do it much too slowly. Hawke didn't catch his act and as she approached him he quickly bumped into her and she fell.

He pointed his sword at her as she cupped her maxillary in pain. She grinned and pretended to be defeated, then as he let his guard down, she took a hold of his sword with her gauntlets and dragged him forward, then kicked him. He let go of his sword and backed away in inertia, then she got up and held his sword and bowed to the crowd.

"The Red Fury of Ferelden wins!" the smithy shouted in complete amazement and clapped his hands, along with the rest of the people watching. "Come here you crazy woman, I'll make you seven crests for this epic show."

"I told you you shouldn't have doubted me, old man," she said and followed him to the stand.

Fenris walked over to them and brought the blades back. Hawke got out the smithy's gauntlets and he saw that her hand was bleeding. Of course… what was in her head when she thought it was a good idea to grab the end of a sword by the hands?

"It's just a scratch, no worries," she said confidently to the both of them as they looked at her.

"Where I come from, it's called a flesh wound," the smithy said in amusement and put the gauntlets away.

"You haven't seen my scars, old man. This is nothing," Hawke said and smiled.

"So, what's it gonna be, milady? The Kirkwall sign or something you want in particular?"

Hawke frowned and thought for a second hesitantly, "Oh, what the hell, make an Amell crest."

"I'll make you seven, my dear," the smithy said in amusement.

"No need for such abundance, messere. Or better yet, make them the size of a knife. I could wear them as a fashion statement."

"As you wish," the smithy said and chuckled. "Come by my stand tomorrow and I'll get them done for you."

"You better be," Hawke said in amusement. "You saw what I can do with two swords and a poor dress. Tomorrow I'll be wearing my armour."

"I'm convinced, Serah," the smithy said and took a short bow.

She turned to Fenris and the crowd made room for them to pass as if they were some kind of heroes. They went over to a bench and sat down.

"Well, that was fun," she said as she looked at him.

"I'm deeply impressed, to say the least," Fenris said and grinned at her.

"Such flattery, Sir. I may fall at your feet if you shower me with compliments much longer," she said sarcastically. "Which would be utterly ironic, considering what happened back there just a minute ago," she said and pointed at the crowd.

As she pointed, Fenris saw the wound she theoretically gave herself and frowned. "Aren't you going to take care of that?"

"I'd rather just bleed it off than," then she whispered "heal myself in public."

He shook his head and reached for his pocket and got out the red material. She wasn't looking at him, so she flinched as she felt him take her hand and bandage it with it.

"Smart move," she said and grinned. "Thanks."

"Next year you're wearing the most massive armour you can find," Fenris said flatly as he bandaged her hand.

"Oh, there's going to be a next year?" she asked and smiled.

"It doesn't hurt to be hopeful," he said bitterly and let go of the hand as he finished.

"Let's find our favourite dwarf. I'm serious need of a drink after such an epic fight," she said happily and got up. "Wherever he is."

They went to the stone ivy columns in the centre of the square, but there was nobody there.

"Ah, drat," she said. "Now I realize there was nobody there to see how awesome I was and how cruelly I put you to shame."

"I can't say I'm broken up about it," he said flatly and sat down.

"You were quite impressive, as well. Well, unless you let me win, in which case you're a sodding asshole."

He laughed softly, "Believe me, I wouldn't fake it with you."

"No?" she asked as she approached him and stood in front of him as he was sitting.

"My morbid curiosity prevented me from even thinking about it," he said and smiled shortly.

"Well, I'm glad we could see eye to eye. And sword to sword," she said warmly.

"Whatever goes inside that head of yours seems to be working," he said, clumsily choosing his words in intent of a compliment that sounded much too vague.

"Do you have any other morbid curiosities about me then?" she asked in amusement, coming even closer.

"Just one," he said and grinned sensually.

"And what's that?" she asked while smiling.

He wanted to reach for her hand and ask her, but she bent down and approached him and he flinched. Her face came extremely close to his, but went past his shoulder as she got out an small piece of paper stuck inside the bench.

"What's this?" she asked and read the paper.

_Dear Ms. Tuffpants and Mr. Bark-a-lot,_

_Since you and Broody decided to ditch us like the assholes that you are, we decided to ditch you too. But I'm not that cruel, so here's your next official Golden Punishment: Along the streets starting from the Market, there are three bottles of wine hidden masterfully by yours truly. Find them and when you get to the last one, find our hiding spot of celebration, since you're so good at it. Oh, and make sure to drink the first two, but not the last one, that's for us. That's an order, Pantaloons. No cheating. The bottle's magically sealed by Blondie anyway. You've got about as far as sunrise. And don't worry about dangers, we cleaned them up real nice. Most of them. Good luck scavenger hunting!_

_Yours truly,_

_Varric T._

"You've got to be joking," Fenris said grumpily and brushed a hand through his hair.

"I don't have much choice, either way," Hawke said with a sad smile. "You don't have to come with me if you don't want to."

"Considering the fact that this is Varric we're talking about and also, the fact that the 'scavanger hunt' starts in the Market, I think it's not so far-fetched to suspect he went somewhere out of town."

"So?" she asked nonchalantly and shrugged.

"So no, you're not going alone," Fenris said firmly and got up.

"He's a sodding crazy control-freak, but he certainly knows how to make up excitement, I have to give him that," Hawke said and shook her head while she chuckled.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Hightown Market**

After extensive looking, Hawke found the bottle stuffed under the stairs of the market. Fenris felt his cheeks burning as he watched her bend down to get it and argued with himself as to look away or not. He didn't come to an accord with himself, for Hawke already got back up and gave him the bottle for him to open.

"What now?" he asked knightly.

"Now we get out of here."

They descended from the Market on the giant stairs and Hawke suddenly stopped and hopped on the balustrade. Fenris came and sat next to her and she gestured for him to do the honours this time. He punched the cork out and raised the bottle, "To pointless scavenger hunting."

"Not exactly pointless. It will get me drunk, that much I'm grateful for."

Fenris gave her the bottle after he took a large sip. "At least you won't end up hungover at my house this time."

"Yes, Maker bless this night for that," she said sarcastically and drank. "That's usually the last thing you say before the road to ruin."

"Road to ruin?" he asked and chuckled. "That's Varric's scavenger hunt written all over it."

"The road to destruction, then, to be more specific," Hawke said confidently and gave him the bottle.

"Duelling a dangerous warrior with two weapons in a dress and now talking about destruction. You seem particularly morbid tonight."

"I thirst for destruction, baby!" Hawke said childishly and Fenris asked himself if she was already taken by the liquor. "But seriously, no, I'm not destroying anything. No, I … take record, I take record of the imminent, the irrevocably impending."

"What's the irrevocably imminent or impending?" Fenris asked bewilderedly after he took a sip and gave her the bottle.

She took a large sip. "I take record of the impatience of a world that is destroying itself and that, in the ruin of its certainties, is rushing itself towards the unusual and the unbounded. You understand?" she asked and looked at him.

Fenris chuckled, "No. If you elaborate on it, I might."

"I knew a crazy old woman once in one of the villages we stayed in for a few months. She was waiting for her house to collapse on her, she was certain it was going to happen. So she spent her days and nights on the watch, wandering the hallways and lurking, ears out for every creak. She was unutterably  _irritated_ that the  _event_ was being delayed."

He didn't say anything and waited for her to make a connection to her original point, which she did. "On a larger scale, the old woman's behaviour is ours, all of world's. We are living with the promise of a fall, even when we don't think about it and think about anything else. But this won't hold; someday this fear of own selves will grow into something very noticeable and unnerving, so it will probably become a basis of education, a principle of future teachings. So, what I'm saying is, the future in which I believe is pretty black."

"Hawke the eternal optimism is actually just a passive pessimist?" Fenris asked mockingly.

Hawke snorted. "Since when am I an optimist? Don't you know my opening line 'I'm not being mean, I'm being realistic'?"

"I thought it was 'I'm busy. Can I ignore you some other time?'" Fenris said in amusement.

"You're thinking I'm self-destructive now," Hawke said and took a sip.

"Like attracts like. Unless we're both wrong," Fenris said and looked away in the distance.

"Whoever destroys things, destroys himself. In everything I have hated, I've implicitly hated myself. I dreamed my own ruin and I dispelled my chances. This … scepticism, at first it's only been a useful tool, a method," she explained and looked at him, "but it ended up becoming a part of me, becoming my physiology, my visceral principle, if you will. I know its curable, I just don't know how yet."

"Are you referring to your lost hope for mages or lost hope for humanity in general?"

"Both, both. For a while, it felt nature to be attracted to things and ideas that have no chance of lasting or enduring. I've become a cynic. Like this 'mages are innocent' thing. Now I simply say 'Mages are innocent until proven otherwise. And it's fairly easy and fast for most to prove themselves otherwise.'"

"I agree," Fenris said flatly and took a sip. "But that's just being realistic, not cynical. Cynical is what I've been for most of my life."

Hawke frowned as she got the bottle from his. "Am I supposed to believe you aren't anymore?"

"Some of the things you've said about mages in our little 'quests', they were more aggressive and hopeless even than the things I had said," he said bitterly after sipping from the bottle and looking down. "I'm ashamed to say they sort of… toned me down."

"But I've said a lot of things that were particularly strong in their defence too."

"I know," he said and looked away. "You don't understand your present view of things."

"That I really don't, my friend," Hawke said courteously and took the bottle away from him. "You know, there's this Circle mage, Tobrius, who used to be my father's good friend, as I found out a long time ago. He told me my father was friends with a Templar that helped him escape. His exact words were 'Rule is not served by caging the best of us. A wise man. Doubt can serve the faithful, even as it vexes them. I fear that has been lost'. The Templar's name was Sir Maurevar Carver."

"Your father named your brother after him," Fernis said, more to himself.

"Yes and I was certain that once he found out, he'd go join the order," she said bitterly, taking another sip.

"A questionable pair of possible choices in fate. A Templar or a Grey Warden."

"Or death, don't forget death," she said firmly.

"I think he received the best possible fate he could from these three," Fenris said flatly.

"I agree," she said bitterly and looked down. "Anyway, this Tobrius, he seemed so calm and unperturbed by the state of his fate. He didn't even seem envious of my father becoming free and not him, even though they were friends. Although he did seem to believe in the rights of mages. He seemed very stoic about it, nevertheless."

"And that unsettled you?" Fenris asked perceptively.

"Yes. More because he was right. Nothing honours the saint or the monk better than discouragement and doubt. Just like he said about the Templar. Doubt can serve the faithful, even as it vexes them. Although I didn't think of it that way at first. What appalled me the most in that moment was his stoicism. How can I put in words that described that moment – I envied him for the art through which he knew how to die."

Fenris lifted his eyebrows. "You  _are_ particularly morbid tonight."

"Oh, just listen to me 'til the end. I'm not finished," Hawke said meanly and gave him the bottle.

"By all means," Fenris said knightly and gestured for her to continue.

"Let me make an opposite comparison. The nobles in this town. They are just the perfectly spitting image of people who are living in expedients and substitutes because they can afford to. I think I've learned from them more than from anybody else by watching them. They are all in a search for opportunities they bluntly refuse when they do run into them. Usually, these kinds of people are called 'losers'."

Fenris chuckled, "They do like to lose and mask them as cheap accomplishments through their ranks that seem immovable. In a way, you could say that people with this kind of power, that ultimately do not hold the major power, follow their own regression. And the faith they have, if they do have it, serves only as a pretext for new capitulations."

"Yes, they collapse into the Maker. Or any other god. They dwell into convictions and certitudes like a worm in an apple; they fall together with it."

"Yes, that's an effective way to put it."

"The cult of Truth… Bah. What truth?" Hawke said angrily. "Their 'truth' is just a fixated idea of adolescence or a symptom of senility. The truth is not meant to be known, as it is just the same, not able to be rationalized and translated into our words and our limited understanding. However, all it takes is one slip to fall back into its net, because we unconsciously seek the truth to justify everything. It's natural  _and_ irritating."

He thought about it and couldn't agree more. It was baffling and unsettling how he seemed to agree with more things she said than disagreeing. Was it still because she was a mage? He didn't even know anymore. He assumed there was a line between them which they would never cross, each of them being held on to a different extreme by nature alone, let alone opinions. Now the line appeared as if had always been just deeply and utterly imaginary.

"I'm destroying myself without doing anything; just waiting for my term, in this rotten air that convictions create – in a world that is suffocating on itself, I breathe; I breathe in my own way," she said with her eyes closed and feeling the chilly air.

Fenris listened and looked at her, "We are not meant to find out the truth, but I think we are meant to makes use of a much more cosmically close concept, that for the most part, remains unconscious."

"And what's that?" Hawke asked while holding onto the bottle.

Fenris shrugged. "I don't know exactly. But it's there. I can feel it sometimes," he said looked up. "Some form of honour or compassion I see in family members, for example."

"You're talking about my Mother aren't you?"

"Not strictly, but she has been a source of knowledge."

Hawke sighed. "My mother will probably presume innocence even in a blood mage. But I might be exaggerating."

"You know her better than I do," Fenris said and smiled.

"Well, to go back your original point. I do understand. There is a functionality to unconditional love. It's probably one of the only certainties that still grants a bit of justice to some people in Thedas. I saw it in my mother and father. I don't believe in soul mates, to be honest, but I do believe that some people are just right for each other. There was never any doubt from my part when I saw them."

"Do you think you would know the same fate?" Fenris asked in curiosity.

"Me?" Hawke asked mockingly. "By no means. Perish the thought. Not all people are meant to meet their perfect half. Maybe it's hazardous, maybe they're just chosen because they deserve that fate, but either way, I'm neither faithful that I have a chance, nor that I deserve it."

"You have me there," Fenris said firmly. "In the Imperium, there's hardly any chance you'll find people marrying for love or sustaining it. Everything is about money and power. Not that it's not the same in every other country, but it's particularly more hollow where I come from."

Hawke smiled bitterly. "I think you only get a chance if you have the balls for it. I think my parents asked for it and welcomed it with courage even in all that uncertainty. Whatever life they had before, it was meaningless. Mother's noble roots meant nothing to her and Father's mercenary life or magic meant nothing to him. And they meant nothing for the other. All that was important for them is that they stay with each other. And they risked it to the bone up until the very end."

"I saw that in your mother. The way she looked at you. How she waited for you to return every day with certainty  _and_ terror. If you lived this privilege already, why do you think it wouldn't be meant for you as well? Am I supposed to believe you don't have 'the balls for it'?"

Hawke looked up as Fenris watched her and waited for answer. "I don't know how to call it. Maybe I can just call it hopelessness. I've cycled through a lot of moments of kindness and cruelty and I've done a lot of bad things. It's not as if I'm such an exciting prize for whatever man is supposedly 'meant' for me."

Fenris snorted. "You must be joking."

"I am quite serious," Hawke said firmly and raised an eyebrow.

He would have said that she was strong, kind, mind-blowingly intelligent as well as beautiful. What more could a man want? But he knew he would sound like a giant hypocrite.  _Justifying your chains and eager to wear the burden._ They both did it in different ways. Who was he to contradict her when he was no better. He wondered about the nature of this feeling he had inside him as he watched her, that a burden, no matter how big, could suddenly be shared.  _If you had the balls for it._

"I'll take your word for it," he simply said and took the bottle out of her hands. It was empty. "Time to find the next delicious bottle."

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Kirkwall City Gates**

They found the next bottle stuffed into a scarecrow with different direction signs glued onto it a few feet past the gates. What did a scarecrow even do in a place like this anyway? They suspected Varric was  _that_ crazy as to install his own puppet, but then let the idea slide.

They wondered the coast and took turns drinking, talking about their duel and exchanging advice on how to perform certain moves. It probably irritated them both that they kept agreeing on things, all the while welcoming criticism as they went.

"Okay, I just want to say one more thing in my philosophical rant and then I'm done," Hawke said childishly.

Fenris laughed shortly, "Go on."

"So, people, not just mages and Templars, – they cultivate this oddness of alienation, which in the future will belong to all of us. From want or necessity, we will experience an eclipse in history. I can feel it. And yes, now I am talking in particular about mages and templars. Call it an 'imperative of confusion', because that's exactly what it is. It's imperative and it will be confusing. It will splash all the present doubts and certainties alike. We've already started annulling ourselves in the multitude of divergences and frictions. Well, not you and me, we're past that, I hope. I mean the world's divergences with itself, in whole and in general. Between mages and the Chantry, espeically. It's like our spirit is negating, as well as abnegating itself endlessly. The spirit just lost its centre, scattering only in _attitudes,_ as useless as they are inevitable. Wherefrom – behold our impudence, our shamelessness and fickleness. Our lack of faith, as well as our abundance of faith – they both wear its stigma."

"I think I understand. From there you also have this need of people to dethrone the Maker, but also be saved by him through worship that consist of mere platitudes. They say the Maker abandoned us, that he does not care for this world anymore, until we become as him again. But this personification of the Maker – before, it seemed that people only attributed their virtues to him, now they attribute their vices, too. Through this statement 'Magic is to serve man and not rule him', doesn't mean anything anymore when it comes from him."

"And this modernization of the 'Heavens' also means its doom and its end. To his infortune, the Maker won't regain his reputation of 'infinite transcendence' any time soon."

Fenris chuckled, "And rightfully so."

"We always think that we can escape our singularities through impertinence. In reality, that way only bring us closer to the thing that obsesses them with. You understand?"

"I do," Fenris said in entertainment as they kept walking.

"Can I recite a quote and then I promise, hand over my heart, that I'm done with this rant?"

"Your rant doesn't bother me, it actually interests me. Much to your surprise, I suspect."

"Nah," Hawke said childishly. "I knew you had the heart of a philosopher from the day I met you," she said warmly and then cleared her throat to recite, " _Vomit and panic of orthodoxies._ " Fenris frowned and then raised an eyebrow and she chuckled, "Wait, that's just the opening line," she continued, " _Once upon a time we defined ourselves through the values that we agreed upon. Today, through the ones that we reject. Without the luxury of negation, the man is just a poor, pathetic little 'creator', incapable of fulfilling his destiny._ "

"Who said that?"

"I don't exactly know. My father had  _a lot_ of these quotes. Probably a poet though. He liked those sexually frustrated weasels."

"I can honestly agree – there has never existed an era more hollow than this one. I mean to say, man has never been more himself than right now; a being refractory and unwilling in the face of wisdom."

"We're just betrayers of animals, I quite want to make a toast for that."

The bottle was empty again. How did time fly so quickly? As they realized it, they also noticed that they were drunk out of their mind by now.

"May I end with a quote?" Fenris asked courteously.

"Sure, have at it," Hawke said as she almost tripped.

Fenris cleared his throat and recited dramatically, "As we let ourselves loose, however slightly, in the will of our impulses and urges, we notice that it is beyond our power to restrain, tame or hide our contradictions. They are the ones that guide us, instigate us and ultimately, kill us _._ "

"Tevinter tragic poet?"

"I don't know," Fenris said and smiled.

"Well I am quite impressed. I don't know anybody else that could have survived my rant and actually provided additional knowledge on the matter, and  _calmly,_ " Hawke said and smiled warmly. "You're not so bad, Fenris. I cannot restrain my impulse to say it any longer!" she said childishly, making the connection to his quote.

 _And I cannot restrain my impulse to kiss you any longer,_ Fenris thought to himself as he looked down.

"You're not so bad yourself, Hawke," he said nonchalantly and gave her a small contained grin. The air grew intensely chilly and the wind started to blow, destroying Hawke's tail. She cursed and sighed, probably because she had played 'female' long enough that day.

"So what was that morbid curiosity that you still said you had back in Hightown?" she asked demandingly.

Fenris swallowed heavily and cursed in his mind that she remembered. He wasn't going to ask it then, but now as he was drunk, the urge was almost uncontrollable. He pressed his eyes and reached for his pocket.

He stopped on the road and gave her the rose. She frowned a bit in confusion, but then caught his intent and accepted it without a word.

* * *

 

**Sometime near almost Sunrise, The Wounded Coast**

"Sod it, where in the Void is that stupid bottle?" Hawke shouted angrily, looking into a barrel on the coast. It was rather hilarious and endearing to see Hawke in a dress and searching through barrels in the middle of nowhere.

"I suspect Varric made the last one the hardest to gloat… and punish us both," Fenris said as he looked under an abandoned caravan where they once made a massacre of Tal-Vashoth.

"I found it!" Hawke shouted eagerly. "It was stuffed in the dirt with only the cork part camouflaged in the grass. Stupid dwarf and his mind games. It has a paper on it :  _Go to the end of the coast and uphill you'll see a pretty little tent. If you don't show until sunrise, you are BOTH getting the BLACK PUNISHMENT : No champagne, no cake, no us. Muahahahahha. Yours truly, Varric T,_ " Hawke finished and rolled her eyes.

"Well with that compelling argument…," Fenris said sarcastically and shrugged as he dangled out of balance.

"Ugh, stop spinning," Hawke said, either to him, herself or the Wounded Coast. Or to all of them. She put a hand to her head and looked behind to see the sun almost rising. "Shit, we're out of time."

She looked back at Fenris who seemed to have a very determined and dark look, all in his imbalance. "We'll get there."

"How? I'm a mage but I can't make us fly," Hawke said angrily as she approached him.

He swayed his head and frowned, then turned to her and gestured at his back. "Hop on."

"Are you serious?" Hawke asked and raised an eyebrow.

"Who's faster from the both of us? The human in the dress or the incredibly flexible elf? Fenris said with a broad drunken smirk. She frowned at him and he gestured again commandingly, "Just do it."

"Fine," she said grumpily and uncrossed her arms.

He took the rose out of her hands as she hopped onto his back and placed it between his teeth. Then with questionably tremendous speed, he ran along the Wounded Coast as the crown of the sun started to emerge and mock his effort. He didn't give up and ran as fast as he could, holding onto her confidently and without even laughing at himself that he came up with that idea and actually placed a rose between his teeth, until they finally reached a cliff with a huge purple lit tent on top. He stopped instinctively right in the opening and let her down, so the others wouldn't start commenting and prodding them. The inertia made her almost strangle him as she came down to the ground. "Sorryyy," Hawke said in a drunken childish tone.

"Next time I'll wear a saddle," Fenris said sarcastically and chuckled softly.

"Anybody order a magically sealed bottle of champagne? Or a shot in the face while we're at it?" Hawke asked sarcastically as they came into the tent.


	20. And Then All Hell Broke Loose

**Somewhere In Time, The Hanged Man**

"So, what happened? Did he sweep you off your feet or did you carry his drunken ass to the tent?" Varric asked eagerly as he caught Hawke alone for once.

"I'm not telling you anything you evil control-freak son of a bitch who planned the whole thing out," Hawke said meanly.

"Oh, grow up. I merely manipulated you two with one little sentence and threw two bottles of wine on a chilly romantic road in the dark," Varric said charmingly. "I could do  _much_ better if I really wanted to."

" _Don't_ do anything anymore," Hawke said defensively. "I mean it Varric, you've got serious problems."

"I'll get myself checked if you do," Varric said grumpily. "Tell me already."

"No!" Hawke said childishly.

"Alright. Then I guess I'll just have to get it out of him," Varric said manipulatively.

Hawke laughed, "I'm gonna be the Queen of Ferelden before  _he_ tells you anything. And you won't be getting anything out of me either. Any other strategies?"

"I hereby  _punish_ you to tell me the truth," Varric said confidently and grinned. "Didn't see that one coming?"

Hawke raised an eyebrow and shook her head, "I'm getting dumber and dumber by the second. Must be 'cause I'm hanging out with you so much."

"Aw, I'm so wounded, boohoo on the stupid dwarf. Now tell me."

"Fine," Hawke said and sighed. "We talked about a million things, he got pretty drunk and gave me a piggy-back ride to your tent since the sun was rising quickly. The end."

Varric drew an extremely disappointed face. "That's it?!"

"I shit you not, my friend," Hawke said confidently.

"Maker's bloody testicles, you two are IDIOTS. And I worked so  _hard_ at that plan. And it was Satinalia, then the wilderness which you love so much, IN THE DARK, and I cleaned the road for you, and … YOU JUST TALKED? Varric sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Sweet Mother of Cheeses, why do I even try?"

"What did you expect, Varric?" Hawke asked angrily. "Mindblowing love-making under the stars in the cold hard dirt?"

"No, I wouldn't go that far, but REALLY? FOR BLIGHT'S SAKE… Andraste's ass you're making me cry, Hawke," Varric said in outrage.

"Why is this so important to you?" Hawke asked suspiciously then narrowed her eyes. "You placed a bet on us, didn't you?"

"Of course I did that, but that's not why I did it. That was just a bonus," Varric said angrily.

"Then what? Suddenly you're Princess Fairy Godmother The Pretty Little Matchmaker?" Hawke half-shouted and stretched out her hands in outrage.

"You are soooo… soooo stupid," Varric said desperately. "Hawke, I love you and you're breathtaking with the sword and the armour and the hair and your stratagems, but you're also a big fat flaming IDIOT."

"Varric?"

"Yes, Hawke?"

She drew an intentional fake sweet smile. "Did someone get their manperiod today?"

"YOU - … you- " Varric stuttered and squeezed the pint. "Talk is cheap, DOING things is better, even I know that," Varric almost shouted, then calmed down and shook his head. "Nevermind. You're a baby, you probably don't even know what goes on or into where. Why do I even bother," Varric said and sighed, then got up from the table and left to get he drinks.

Hawke widened her eyes and her expression disappeared.

_You're such a tease_

_Talk is cheap_

A pain came shooting straight in her brain as she remembered the last piece of that night she got incredibly drunk and Fenris insisted on staying at his house. The night when she grabbed his butt and he did the same and engaged in a ridiculous match for who let go first.

**THAT BLIGHTED LYING MOTHERFUCKER FULL OF GIGANTIC PIECES OF CRAP WITH TWENTY THOUSAND CHERRIES ON TOP**

* * *

 

**Quickly Reversing Time, That Night, Courtyard of High Estate District**

"Then let  _go,_ " Fenris said decisively as he approached his lips to her ear.

"Nope, not convinced," Hawke said confidently, without flinching at the warm air he breathed on her neck.

Fenris smirked and looked at her while still close ,"I consider myself an enthusiastic explorer of the challenging and the unknown. What happens if I do this?" he said and squeezed her ass even harder. She thought for a second what she wanted more – her precious pants not to rip or Fenris's gauntlet continuing its game.

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a murderous look, "You know, there's another special place where I can put my gauntlet and ain't gonna be pretty, Mr. Wild Explorer of The Unknown."

He smirked and looked down, then back up at her. "I know you wouldn't do it."

"Here's a thing you might wanna learn about me, Fenris. If you tell me I can't do something, that's exactly what I'm gonna do."

Fenris gave her a sensual grin. "Then do it, let's see you try," he said in a deep voice.

Hawke hesitated and decided to just pretend to do it so he would back away defensively. She got her free hand out and reached for his pants, but he quickly caught her with his free hand.

"Cheating are we, Fenris? You're such a tease," Hawke said mockingly.

"I just had to see if you had it in you," Fenris said and grinned at her sensually. "After all, I said I wouldn't take advantage of you."

"Well, I knew all along you didn't have it in you," Hawke said mockingly and grinned.

He gave her a piercing, determined look, took a step closer, pushed her further into the wall, placed his leg between hers and approached his lips to her ear again. "I can do this all night, Hawke. Perhaps I'll tease you until you explode. Watch you struggle and see the look of frustration on your face which do not have any doubt, I will fiercely enjoy. Perhaps I could push you even further into this wall, press even harder against you, bind your hands forcefully until you're under my command and you can't escape," he said calmly, in a deep provocative voice. He looked down to her neck as he breathed onto it, "I could kiss your neck and bite your ear as gently as I would allow myself to, explore the other challenging areas of you, do it over and over again until you beg me to take you."

Hawke listened to his overly decisive and seductive speech and stopped her breathing entirely. This she did not expect from him. Nooo, no, this she did  _not_ expect from  _him._ She prayed to the gods that he was intoxicated too. She swallowed heavily, then said in a half-determined, seemingly unaffected voice. "Talk is cheap, Fenris."

He didn't move and narrowed his eyes. "Have I ever lied to you, Hawke?" he demanded in a determined, deep voice.

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you," Hawke said mockingly.

"Mm," he muttered with a provocative smirk. "Then let me give you a demonstration.". He quickly placed a hand on her neck and she suddenly felt his soft hair touching her face, his eyes filled with piercing ferociousness, his lips coming closer to hers, then stopping before they ever actually met. He remained like that for a good three seconds, neither of them breathing. Hawke was almost choking from the tension, as he set up and created a fire that was almost dying to be released, but then he slowly distanced his face in silence with a brutally decisive look. "Was that enough or do you need further proof?"

She let go of his butt in silence and he did the same, eyeing her in a very piercing, bone-hard way and then backed away from her. As he turned his back, she let herself breathe again, her legs trembling horrifically and her heart throbbing in her chest as if it was aggressively trying to pierce out of her body.

"Shall we go inside now?" Fenris said and turned his head only briefly without actually looking at her. "And you can sleep it off," he finished nonchalantly in a deep voice.

That gigantic teasing manipulative lying son of a bitch…

 _Nothing happened_  he said.  _Nobody tried anything on anybody_  he said. What a load of crap. What a gargantuan piece of gigantic fucking crap.

… KING OF FUCKING SEMANTICS

Because technically, he  _was_  telling the truth. Nothing happened  _and_  he didn't actually take advantage of her. He beat her at her own game so viciously bad she might as well have crawled into the darkest pit of the earth and died.

When Varric returned, he saw Hawke with an open mouth, raised eyebrows and a terribly pale face.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Varric asked in terror.

"He teased me to the darkest bits of hell," she said in a ghostly voice, thinking out loud and not even looking at Varric.

"What?" Varric asked bewilderedly.

"He had his face just," Hawke said in a petrified state and pointed at her face, "zero inches away from mine and he," she stuttered. "He faked kissing me. He had his lips right in front of mine and-"

"What in the Void are you talking about?" Varric asked in outrage. "Hawke!" he waved at her and she didn't move her eyes at all.

Hawke pressed her eyes tight and opened her mouth again, frowning to no end and putting a hand on her forehead. "That little evil SICK SODDING MOTHERFUCKER!" she screamed and banged her fist in the table, and over The Hanged Man, you could see a flock of terrified birds springing out and away from the building as her voice echoed outside.

* * *

 

**Fenris's Mansion**

She rushed up the stairs to High Estate District ready to beat the hell out of him. Looking at the ivy stone columns where he played her so well that night, she stopped and exhaled heavily. She have to give him some credit; he used the best stratagem of them all - surprise the enemy with a form of attack he would never expect. She laughed softly at herself, for it was baffling how she let herself affected by this. She exhaled again and rolled her eyes, as she mockingly knocked on his door.

After a bit, the door opened and Fenris yawned heavily, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

To getting your ass kicked.

"To me," Hawke said sarcastically and grinned.

"I thought we were supposed to meet with Varric later," he said nonchalantly and rubbed his eyes.

"I have time to kill," she said and shrugged. "What's wrong with you?"

"Can you not tell?" he said grumpily and welcomed her in.

"Out of hangover tea?" she laughed.

"It didn't help," he said flatly.

"Aw, poor Fenris," she said sweetly. "Can I help with anything?"

He was stumbling while walking. "I do not want to trouble you."

"Cut it before I cut you," Hawke said firmly and he laughed in a hoarse voice.

"How are you not in the same state as I am?" he asked calmly as they arrived in his room.

"I've had a lot on my mind," she said subtly and narrowed her eyes. "And I can hold my liquor."

He laughed shortly and shook his head, "No you can't."

"Well you seem to be an expert in how I handle things," she said calmly and he raised an eyebrow. "How's your back?"

He frowned and straightened his back and it cracked like a statue. "Thank the gods you were in a dress."

"It was your idea, not mine," she said and grinned. "Want some help?"

"If it's not too much to ask," he said and smiled.

"By all means," she said courteously and gestured for him to go on the bed. "Let me help with that," she said and undid the straps at the back of his vest. He didn't say a word as she gently undid his vest and took it off entirely. He decided not to question her move and lied down.

"So, what did you think of Satinalia? Much more fun with me around, wasn't it?" she said nonchalantly as she got on top of him and started rubbing his back.

"It was quite entertaining, I have to admit," Fenris said flatly and rested his hands under his chin.

"You're not the least bit mad that I crushed you to bits in the duel in front of all those people?"

He grinned in silence, then said, "You were a worthy opponent and I lost fair and square. What's done is done."

"That's true. Feels good to have you at my mercy," she said calmly and squeezed his skin tighter. "Kind of like right now."

"That's fairly morbid," Fenris said as he frowned. "I am not at your mercy."

"That's true. It's more like justice," Hawke said and squeezed his back muscles harder.

Fenris groaned in pain and turned his head sideways. "What are you doing?"

"Just giving you a taste of your own medicine," she said calmly and immobilized him as she pressed harder on his muscles, avoiding every marking. "Don't fret, Fenris, it's not like I'm really hurting you. It's just a thorough backrub."

"Whatever it is, it's not a good one," he said angrily. He was taken aback and tried to control his blind instinct. Whatever that blind instinct was though, it seemed it was coming late to the party, because he remained there without protest.

"No?" she asked nonchalantly. "Then maybe I should switch strategies," she said calmly and started gently moving her nails across his back, avoiding every marking.

Fenris tried with all his strength not to moan and pressed his eyes. "What are you doing, Hawke?"

"Exploring a challenge," she said nonchalantly and kept moving her nails on his back. "Perhaps I could keep teasing you like this, or even lie on you, hold down your wrists, bite your ears and kiss your back, run my tongue along your spine, do it over and over again until you beg me to stop."

She remembered. If he was in a better position now, he would have laughed, but he remained silent and they had a mutual telepathic understanding that he knew what she was taking about. She grinned and got a hold of his shoulders, thrusting her nails in them and went all the way down. Fenris couldn't help it anymore, the rush and electricity on his back being too much to bear. He squeezed the sheets and moaned in a hoarse voice, then in a fit of rush tried to escape her grip. She quickly got him by the arms and pressed him down as she leaned forward and thrust her pleasuring nails in his skin again, running them along his arms. He tried to lift himself up, but she pressed him down again with force and he moaned ferociously again. She laughed softly and bent down slowly to whisper in his ear, "Who knew you could dare to tease a girl like that."

Fenris growled and breathed heavily. He felt tension all around his body and tried to stop himself from telling her to do as she desired. The heat of her on top of him and her seductive grip, her determined and bewitching voice, the sweet scent of her hair and her warm breath, it was too much. He pressed his eyes and lifted his hips quickly, unbalancing her and with all his strength grabbed her as she let her guard down. He grabbed her arms forcefully and swung her on the side as he immobilized her under him, defenceless and taken by surprise. She gasped for air and looked straight in his eyes, his dark, homicidal, provocative eyes and his strong, bare chest and rippling muscles that were almost glowing in the dim light and held her still so effectively. Fenris bent forward with cocksure, ferocious eyes. "And what if I did?" he asked in a deep, aggressive voice.

"I don't like a tease," she said firmly while narrowing her eyes at his close face that was breathing warm air on her neck. "If you have something to say or do," she said confidently and lifted her head even closer to him, "Have at it." He frowned at her words and widened his eyes, his eyebrows lifting in hesitation as he didn't answer. She grinned, "Didn't think so." Fenris loosened his grip, so Hawke raised herself up and pushed him away forcefully on the other side of the bed. He rose from his back while breathing heavily and his pants were blowing up with the rush of pleasure and fear she practically stormed onto him. He lifted his knee, resting his elbow on it as he eyed her angrily in silence. She didn't look at him, just smiled and got up from the bed with her back turned on him and left.

* * *

 

**Somewhere in Time, Sunset, The Hanged Man**

"I wouldn't suggest going there, Daisy," Varric said to Merrill as he was leaning on the bar.

"Is this a special occasion where we have to sit at the bar?"

"No, no, they're just going at it again."

"Going at what?" Merrill asked in confusion.

"At something that rhymes with 'girder' and 'marking'," Varric said charmingly.

"Herder and sparkling?" Merrill asked bewilderedly.

"No, Daisy. Murder and barking," Varric said firmly.

"Oh. Then let's assign today as Sitting At The Bar Day, please," Merrill said awkwardly.

"That's actually not a bad idea," Varric said while frowning.

"I've been doing that for a year now and it's been working just fine. Why do I even bother?" Isabela said in amusement.

"Why are they fighting again?" Merrill asked in confusion.

 _My guess is because they're both idiots. Hawke is mad that he played her when she was drunk and he is mad, well, about anything, anytime,_ Varric thought to himself with his arms crossed.

**_Before and meanwhile at the Hawke - Fenris War of 9:33 Dragon Table…_ **

"Fenris, are you folding or not?" Isabela asked impatiently. "Stop brooding so much."

"Oh, I don't mind, leave him lost in his thought. It's unfamiliar territory," Hawke said sarcastically.

Fenris frowned. "And I don't mind you talking so much, as long as you don't mind me not listening."

"You just did, smarty pants. And whatever it is that's eating you right now, it must be suffering horribly."

"Alright, maybe we should calm ourselves down and contemplate something warm and nice. Repeat after me – 'I'm in a green, peaceful, sunny field –'" Varric said, but Fenris interrupted him.

"I've seen rotten dead corpses that are less offensive and repugnant than you."

"Calm, happy thoughts, elf," Varric said angrily.

"Pardon me, Fenris, but you're obviously giving the shooting homicidal look to somebody who doesn't give a damn. And since you're at that, focus on my right shoulder – it's been itching for some time now."

"I've heard a bath helps with that," Fenris said flatly.

"Woah, woah, easy with the angry comments, there's enough tension here to set fire to a whole empire," Isabela said in amazement.

"Oh, don't worry Izzy, he knows I'm just kidding around. I like Fenris. People say I have no taste, but I like Fenris," she said sarcastically and smiled.

"Why thank you," he said sarcastically.

"No need to thank me, it was my pleasure in insulting you."

"So yeah, does anyone have any serpents?" Varric muttered in annoyance.

"So, I've never actually been to the Anderfels to be a cactus expert, but I know a prick when I see one," Hawke said confidently and grinned.

"No serpents? Just me?" Varric asked awkwardly, rolling his eyes.

"Nice tan, Hawke. To what race do I owe the pleasure? Carrot?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

"You know the last time I saw something like you, I flushed it," Hawke retorted meanly.

"Now we know why some animals eat their own children," Fenris muttered grumpily.

"Ouch," Isabela said awkwardly.

"Ah, I'm nobody's fool, everything he says is with love, even those murderous glares he's giving me right now," Hawke said confidently.

"You're nobody's fool, Hawke, but don't give up hope. Maybe someone will adopt you someday," Fenris said flatly.

"Ah, men are all the same," Isabela said and rolled her eyes.

"Who told you to try them all?" Fenris asked her firmly.

"She didn't try you, so whatever she's doing, it makes some sense," Hawke said quickly.

"Too bad stupidity isn't painful. You would be dead before sunrise," Fenris said and threw a card away.

"Guys… not that I don't mind your battle of wits here, but are you sodding folding or not?" Varric interrupted calmly.

"This is no battle of wits, Varric. I would never pick a fight with an unarmed man," Hawke said and smiled.

"Stop picking on him, Hawke," Varric said. "And you too, elf."

"Why? Suddenly he's your best pal that you need to babysit?" Hawke said angrily.

"He's a great asset to our team. So are you. And I want both of you alive. Now shut up and play," Varric said and looked at his cards.

"I think you were off by two letters there," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Just like I'm off at noticing the twinkle you have in your eyes while you two go at each other," Varric said sarcastically.

"The twinkle in her eyes is just the sunlight shining between her ears," Fenris said grumpily.

"No need to feel intimidated by my intelligence, Fenris, what you lack in it you certainly make up for in revolting stupidity," Hawke said meanly and discarded a serpent.

"Poor Hawke. Nobody's giving you attention so you just have to sting and spit your venom at anyone who feels sorry for you and listens."

"And behold the King of Idiots who decided to listen to me," Hawke said while gesturing dramatically.

"I'm done, I need a drink," Varric said and got up from the table.

"Guys, either shut up and finish this game or get a room and sort your hate for each other in a more horizontal position," Isabela said decisively.

They both ignored her and kept staring meanly at each other.

"And behold the Queen of Clowns. Ferelden has been cruelly deprived of one idiot," he said sarcastically and gestured dramatically as well.

"That was mean, even for you!" Isabela said and frowned.

"Ah, Fenris, don't worry. I still adore you. You're not as bad as people say. You are much, muuuch worse."

"And there you are right beside me competing for the 'Who has more people hating them so if one had to kill them all it would turn into an apocalypse'."

"Oh, that's adorable. We're not very different, you and I, but people don't hate me, because I can be a delight whenever I want to," she said charmingly, the narrowed her eyes firmly. "This isn't it."

Fenris smirked. "I can only suspect you behave quite the opposite of how you feel for a person."

"I know, right? I can't keep my eyes off of you," Hawke said and leaned forward onto the table. "When I look into your eyes, Fenris, I see… well, I can see straight through to the back of your head."

He shook his head. "Anyone who told you to be yourself couldn't have possibly given you any worse advice."

"I'm sorry. I'd love to understand things from your point of view, Fenris, but I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass," Hawke said sarcastically as Fenris took a card from the deck.

"It certainly looks like it would have plenty of room for it," Fenris said meanly.

"Ah, you're growing on me. Kind of like a tumor," she said sarcastically.

"I can barely wait for it to destroy the last little bit of brain you still have among the gigantic cobwebs in your head." He took a card and Hawke noticed him smile shortly.

"Ah, the Knight of Roses again, if I am to guess? Or should I say Princess of Roses."

"The serpent-entwined dagger. Or better yet, the viper-entwined witch," he said nonchalantly and eyed her.

"You should change your lucky card to the Song of Sadness and Sorrow. Clearly a much better fit."

"Maybe you should just fold before I anger you too much and you set fire to the whole table."

"Right beside you as you blow up in spikes like an angry glowing porcupine."

"Seriously…," Isabela sighed. "I was winning and you…"

"Should that offend me? I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously, you wear a unicorn-looking dragon outfit  _voluntarily._ "

Hawke frowned and was probably out of witty one-liners. "You're mean and condescending."

"You talk while you eat and sprinkle food everywhere."

"You're living in a giant sodding mansion that's falling apart and has rats crawling in and out like it's an amusement park."

"At least I keep my clothes off the floor and make my bed every morning. I saw your room. Even the Bone Pit looks more welcoming."

"It's like I'm not even here," Isabela said grumpily and sighed, getting up and leaving their table without them noticing a thing.

"You complain about everything constantly – there's nothing in the world you can't find something negative about."

Fenris leaned forward on the table, his face a few inches from hers. "And you can't mutter one word out of that mouth of yours without it sounding like a joke."

Hawke frowned and narrowed her eyes, going closer. "You make strange noises in your sleep."

Fenris lifted his eyebrows but frowned again aggressively. "And how would you know that?"

"Varric blabs. What did you expect? To keep it a secret?" she said in amusement.

"You swing that gigantic knife you call a sword as if you were juggling oranges."

"Oh, like you're any better, Mister I-glow-in-the-dark-like-a-Satinalia-tree."

He frowned at her without backing down his face from hers. "Preposterous."

She narrowed her eyes and said firmly, "Spell preposterous."

He lifted his eyebrows shortly. "I –" he hesitated and looked down. What? It's not such a big deal, she didn't even think she knew exactly how to spell it. Couldn't he just start with the obvious p-r-e-p-

**Oh**

He didn't  _know._

Shit…

* * *

 

**Somwhere in Time, Fenris's Mansion**

"I got you something," Hawke said and gave him a book and a small family crest wrapped around in a ribbon.

"It's … it's a book," Fenris said stuttering. "And I take it that's my prize?"

"I see your eyesight is still working fine, old man."

"Is this some sort of joke?" he asked angrily and frowned at her murderously.

"If I intended it as a joke I would have given you a self-help book. This is the Book of Shartan."

"And how is  _that_ not a joke? Let's remind the former slave he can't read and give him a book about slaves to make the irony all the more repugnant."

"Calm your tits, Fenris," she said angrily and sighed. "You haven't been a slave for years. What's your excuse for not learning now?"

"It seems too late for that at my age," he said bitterly.

Hawke chuckled heavily, "What are you, seventy? That's a poor excuse."

"Oh? Is it that easy? Why don't you just sit here for a decade and teach me then," he said aggressively.

Hawke laughed. "That's exactly what I intended."

He stopped and his mouth opened in surprise, his eyebrows shortly lifted.

"Lost for words, Fenris? I'll teach you plenty soon enough," she said firmly while grinning.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to seem ungrateful… it's just," he hesitated, "You must want something in return, certainly," he said knightly.

"Have you met me at all, old man? I'm a nice person. Suck it up and say thank you."

He chuckled and pronounced every syllable mockingly, "Thank you."

"And the crest you won anyway, by losing the bet. And no, it's not like I'm giving you some symbol to wear for me like I'm some sort of master, so don't freak out. I talked it out with Varric and he let all the thieves know that people who are wearing that crest are off limits."

He swallowed heavily and nodded.

"Although it would be nice if I got a massage from you instead once in a while."

"Oh? Did you finally scare the whore elf into his own death?" he asked nonchalantly as he placed the gifts on the table.

Hawke shrugged and grinned. "Why throw money away when you can make better bargains with better looking elves."

He grinned widely and crossed his arms. "Such flattery. Don't you think I know your stratagems by now? Everything you do screams manipulation."

_And everything you did to me that night in the courtyard, what was that? Just a cheap on-the-spot followed impulse? You little manipulative handsome son of a bitch._

Hawke smiled and crossed her arms, too. "And yet you let me continue."

He smirked. "Eh, why not? I can take pleasure in watching the entertaining process of you trying to have your way with me before I break it gently to you and ruin you for other men."

"Such arrogance. You're full of it, old man."

"We may never know for sure."

_No shit._

"So, what's it gonna be first… I teach you or I touch you? Or you touch me? Your call."

He shook his head. "I don't know which is more unsettling."

"That was mean. Even for you," she said childishly and crossed her arms again.

He smirked arrogantly. "Oh, you'll live."

They spent the whole night going through that book and even got to finish the first chapter. But with a lot of effort on both Hawke and Fenris's part, for he started to become very aggressive and rejecting and she had to stay tough and remind him if he could go through sword training, he could go through twenty-something letters of the alphabet and put them to good use in time. She knew he felt very foolish and if she made even one joke about it he would get up and kick her out, so she remained calm and supportive. At one point, she noticed he grew too tired to try and she simply took over and read to him and he listened carefully, nodding in agreement, frowning or taking sips of wine.

"But the slavery we had known, the actual chains that bound us, were but a small fragment of what we felt every day. Even as some of us became free, we knew no other way and it was terrifying, freedom. We had yet to actually understand what it meant. As I see it now, freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery," Hawke read and suddenly got interrupted by Fenris.

"That's enough," he said bitterly. "Thank you, but I'm tired."

"Alright," Hawke said and closed the book. "See you tomorrow?"

"You're already going?" he asked bewilderedly.

"I thought you said you were tired," she said and raised an eyebrow.

"I still owe you something," he said knightly and gestured dramatically. "So in the words of Hildegaard Bianca Hawke – shut up and get on the bed."

She grew pale for a second and hesitated . "No. I was just kidding about that."

"Hawke, don't play with me," he demanded grumpily.

"I'm not," she said and smiled. "It's alright. I don't need massages anymore."

"So you're not to going to go to your inappropriate elf either?"

"No," she said firmly. "I'm fine, really. I think my helping you with your back magically fixed mine too. Metaphorically speaking."

Fenris shook his head and frowned. "Get on the bed."

"No," she said firmly and frowned. "I don't want to, alright?"

He lifted his eyebrows and felt foolish. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," she said and laughed softly. "It's my fault. I brought it up."

He sighed, "If I haven't made you uncomfortable, then at least stay for another glass of wine. I'm not that sleepy."

"No, I really should get going. Busy, busy day tomorrow."

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, right, I haven't told you," she said and pressed her eyes as she felt foolish. "I'm planning on a trip."

Fenris frowned, "To Sundermount?"

"Noooo thank you. No," she said and waved her hands in protest. "A trip to a land far far away / Where cigarillos are made and it rains every day," she improvised awkwardly.

He widened his eyes and lifted his eyebrows. "Antiva?"

"Jackpot," Hawke said and smiled. "You're welcome to come, of course. Unless you think it's crawling with Danarius's men."

"Seeing as how I've been spotted in the south of the Imperium, it seems less likely for them go to the north-east. But there is a chance, yes."

"Well, if you really fear for your safety, I understand. Although it seems pretty dumb to remain in the city without your guardian angel," she said charmingly as she winked at him.

He smirked, "It does indeed," he said firmly and looked at the fire, then turned back to her. "When are you going?"

"I don't know yet. Until I sort it out with Varric, see if a caravan ride is better than a boat, decide who I take with me  _and_ convince my mother that I'm  _going_ to come back," Hawke enumerated awkwardly, "Could take a while."

"Let me know when you do," Fenris said knightly. "I think I'd like to see it properly this time."

"You've been there before?"

"You could hardly call it that," he said bitterly. "I ran along the border. I certainly didn't see anything but forests, mud and fish, bah."

"Then it's settled," Hawke said and nodded. "Good night, Fenris."

"Good night, Hawke," he said firmly and watcher her as she left.

Why did she suddenly refuse him? If he had allowed her to do it quite a lot of times now and hadn't attacked her, then why would she worry?

Then it dawned on him that reading about slavery had probably made it very real for her that he was once one. The reality struck her that he was but a very dangerous, unpredictable man who refused to learn to be free. Although they saw eye to eye in a lot of things, Hawke was very different in one aspect – she didn't like to strangle herself with her own chains, or in other words, she saw what was best in everything and made use of it. She was not a coward and she didn't like to limit herself. Her attitude was probably the reason he allowed himself to let loose in her presence and feel alive, be himself. But his state was undeniable and couldn't be ignored. He was just a troubled former slave living in a borrowed mansion.

He cursed himself he allowed this to become a friendship. She probably saw right through him from the beginning. Yet again, if she did, she still wasn't backing down. She took her time with him, didn't prod him about his problems, showed him she didn't give two spitting coppers about what he was.  _Kaffas,_ he thought to himself as he got up and threw the bottle into the wall.

* * *

 

**Evening, Dwarven Merchant's Guild**

"What's he doing here?" Hawke asked a bit meanly as Varric and Fenris met with her in the market.

"Just fulfilling my life's purpose of bringing you misery," Fenris said sarcastically in a grumpy voice.

"Can we be civil?" Varric asked and frowned. "We've got a job to do. If you have barking and mocking to catch up on, do it on your own time."

"Don't worry, Varric. I've made it my life's purpose to treat the invisible the way they should be," she said sarcastically and smiled.

"What did we have to do, again?" Fenris asked nonchalantly while ignoring her.

"There's this friend of mine who works under a real pain the ass merchant. If we get to talk to him, he can land us a very good deal on a cart ride. That and I've been meaning to sell him some stuff," Varric said and rolled his eyes.

"That's your incredibly hard job?" Hawke asked mockingly and crossed her arms.

"They're Carta people," Varric said and frowned. "And the merchant in charge is a cut-throat angry son of a bitch. He won't let him associate with me anymore. So, if anything happens," Varric stretched his arms dramatically at them, "I've got two angry pain in the ass friends who will take care of trouble."

"So we just barge in his shop and hope it doesn't get ugly?" Hawke asked bewilderedly and sighed. "I knew I should have worn better armour today."

"Oh, you're fine," Varric said sweetly and looked at her black cardigan closed by a red waist girdle.

They walked by the entrance and she looked at the both of them. "Wait, how are we going to do this?"

"His shop is big, if you go and bullshit him about his merchandise, maybe throw in some compliments about his gems, me and Mr. Mad-a-lot can get our way past him and find my dear old friend."

"By gems I hope you mean actual jewellery I hope," Hawke said and crossed her arms.

"Of course, what do you take me for? A pimp?" Varric said in amusement.

"You're not far from it," she said and laughed.

"Just as a heads-up though, he likes redheads with big bosoms, so," Varric said awkwardly and coughed. "Feel free to use that to your advantage."

"Is he dangerous? I mean, if he doesn't get perfectly distracted?" Fenris asked flatly as he came next to Hawke at the entrance.

"Let's put it this way – if he so much as leaves his spot, we'll wake up gagged and tied on a boat to Rivain."

Fenris nodded in understanding and looked at Hawke who frowned at him. He quickly punched out the button of her shirt and it widened to make a cleavage. She gave him a murderous look and he gave her a smug grin as he opened the door, so she couldn't say anything.

After the whole thing was done, they got out of shop and Varric pat her on the hip. "Thank you for taking one for the team, Hawke. I owe you one."

"You owe me a naked dance on the pole, is what you owe me," Hawke said angrily and Fenris couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"Not if I can help it," Varric said in amusement and sighed in relief. "How about I buy you a drink? Or twenty?" Varric coughed. "Maybe that way the whole shirt will come off and we'll get to see what that merchant was missing."

Fenris laughed and Hawke became red with anger. "Not if I can help it."

They walked out of the Merchant's Guild and Hawke looked at Fenris, who quickly turned his head. She grinned at said, "You know you two are adorable, teaming up against me like that. At first I was a bit jealous that you became such good pals behind my back, but now I think I get it. You just set up a 'Worship Hawke' club."

"Oh, yeah. We meet every week and eat fine food off of a porcelain doll laid on the table that was made in your image," Varric said sarcastically. "Sometimes we throw darts at it too."

* * *

 

**Somewhere in Time, Sunset, Hawke's Estate**

After another lovely and uncomfortable dinner with Mother, Hawke pretended to walk him out of the mansion. They sat on the bench and talked peacefully about her training. He listened carefully and snorted every time she told a story about how she made an ass out of herself on the field : the time she swung the sword and dropped it and flew into the river, the first time she wore heavy armour and fell right on the ground like a statue, the time she argued with her brother over who's the best and she accidently dropped her sword on his foot and cut off his toe… good times. Of course, he didn't speak of his training. She knew that it wasn't voluntary and it wasn't fun for him, so he changed the subject and asked her about the magic training.

"Again with that? Who's prodding inanely now?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"You don't have to tell me," he said flatly.

"Well, to be honest, it's getting rather boring. I snuck a book about magic from a friend in the Circle and I've been meaning to catch up on Spirit magic. It's one of the most difficult, but at least more interesting branches."

"Can you elaborate?"

"Well, apart from your own mana, you can draw out energy from the Fade. It's not an easy task to accomplish and the worst part is spirit damage is extremely lethal so if someone accidentally casts it in a cluster of enemies where an ally is, well, they're screwed. But I don't know… It makes me want to blow up and scream 'I hate this! Just strip me of my powers already!'"

He cupped his maxillary and looked at her, "What about Arcane magic? That is exactly what a warrior may profit from."

"And how would you know that?" she asked arrogantly.

He rolled his eyes and chuckled, "I come from the Imperium. My language alone is called Arcanum. They practically invented Arcane warriors, apart from blood magic. It's probably their one good achievement."

"It's not exactly the same thing, Fenris. And I don't think there's a book on Arcane warriors I can sneak from the Circle."

"You don't need to. As I understand, it's just a different form of force magic. Either you convert your magic into physical damage alone or you simply apply your magic onto physical objects and attacks."

"You do know your magic," she said grinning. "I feel horribly uneducated."

"It was not a piece of knowledge that I voluntarily asked for," he said flatly.

"So you're saying I should take advantage of my magic all the time in combat through this Arcane stuff?"

"Why not? It would certainly profit us a great deal."Hawke frowned and said nothing, looking down and he noticed. "You don't need to do if you don't want to. It was just a suggestion."

She smiled, "I know. It's just… I am barely getting used to using magic as a last resort as it is. I think I've got enough on my plate for now."

"Of course," he said firmly. "I understand."

"My father was like this," she said bitterly. "Though he didn't really show it. Mother used to say he didn't need to show me how much he hated being what he was, because I took right after him in a heartbeat."

Fenris looked at her with a wondering look. "May I ask how come then?"

She looked down and smiled bitterly, "Well you don't get to be the pretty mage excited about magic when you're an illegal fugitive. Freedom is not exactly a boon, in this little aspect. And apart from that, well… it just bothered me that whenever I made a sudden movement there was this small chance that I set the house on fire or choked somebody with my mind if they pissed me off as I merely looked at them. Some may find it fascinating, but I found it repelling."

"Your brother whined his whole life that he was the disadvantaged one in your household and yet it seems the anger was mutual. You were jealous of him, weren't you?"

"So jealous," Hawke said with a smile while shaking her head. "All he had to worry about was if he put the metal cap on his groin correctly or if he swung the sword without throwing it in the river. And once he came of age, he was free to go wherever he wanted to."

"Wouldn't that have applied to you as well?"

"Well, yes, sort of. He didn't leave for the same reason I didn't. Because we cared too much for each other to leave the househould. We had to stick together. But I kept telling him he was free to go, since he wasn't the one that had to run."

"He whined and made you feel guilty to mask the fact that it was his choice to stay and with that, remain in your shadow."

"And it's a good thing he doesn't have to do that anymore. He got his silent wish. He's his own man now," she said flatly and looked down.

Fenris frowned and realized something. "But you would have wanted to be in his place, if you could choose to."

She looked up at the sky and sighed. "Well… If I could choose, without being tied down to any responsibility, without family to worry about, just in a perfect form of complete selfishness, yes. I would have given myself to the cause in a heartbeat."

"That's why you said it didn't matter if the Wardens offered to recruit you or not that night, isn't it?"

"Figured that out yourself, I see," she said with a bitter smile and looked down again. "They did offer. I already knew too much about them when I barged into their outpost like that. But I couldn't do it. And Carver didn't either. So they just made sure I kept my mouth shut and never come back."

"I hope you'll keep to that promise," Fenris said and chuckled. "You survived a month to the darkspawn and half a year wondering aimlessly across Thedas. It would be quite the irony to end up getting killed by Grey Wardens."

"I'll try not to die if I can help it," she said in amusement. "But rest assured, I can't make that promise if my rescuing evading tank, well… evades."

Fenris laughed softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled and looked down. "I hope not."

"You know, it just occurred to me that in a way, you using your markings all the time makes you more of a mage that I am at the moment."

He frowned and she immediately regretted what she said.

"That just makes the irony all the sweeter," he said bitterly.

"Don't take it that way, ugh," Hawke said and rolled her eyes. "This basically means that we're just no better than one another."

"It does, indeed," he said flatly, cupping his maxillary.

"Well, time to go back in," Hawke said warmly and got up. "Wait, where are you going?"

"Home?" he asked bewilderedly.

"Oh, no, no, no. You're not getting out of your reading lesson just because my mother asked for a dinner last minute."

"You wish to do this here?" he asked, gesturing to her house.

Hawke shrugged and smiled. "I've got wine."

"Well with that compelling offer, how can I refuse," he said sarcastically.

* * *

 

**Nighttime, Hawke's Estate**

They were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall in the main room, opposite to the fireplace. Hawke got a few books out of her library and they took turns in reading passages. The wine kept them going and amused, rather than frustrated and it felt quite comforting to sit like that, with glasses of wine by their feet and the fire at a distance creaking and throbbing. At one point, Fenris loosened up and removed his shoulder pads, gauntlets and chest plate and undid a few buttons of his vest. She thought about how envious of him, because she couldn't afford to do the same, even if it was so hot inside. She only removed her red waste girdle and placed it on her lap under the book.

After he took another sip of wine and placed the glass back on the floor beside his leg, Fenris played with the pages of the book and he stopped right at a page which had a separate, smaller paper stuck inside. He took it out and frowned, as he recognized the handwriting that was beautiful on the top and ended up aggressive and rushed.

"Don't read that," she said and tried to grab it out of his hand, but he quickly moved it away and farther from where she could reach.

"Why? Is it some dirty journal entry?" he asked sarcastically and gave her a smug grin.

"You wish," Hawke said mockingly and tried to reach for the paper again, unsuccessfully.

"Then what is it? A sad love story?" he asked in amusement.

"Nope," she said childishly and tried again, uuunsuccessfully. "Do you think I'm that stupid to write something that Varric would find and put in his memoirs?"

"So you do have a tragic love story," he said confidently and smiled.

"It's not really a love story, but it is tragic," she said and sighed, after she gave up trying to get the paper out of his hands.

He frowned perceptively and asked, "May I ask what happened?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she said mockingly and shook her head.

"As you wish," he said knightly and nodded, but then grinned. "I will just proceed to read whatever secret entry you kept hidden in this book."

"Fine, read it already," she said and gestured to him to have at it. She took her glass and drank the wine nonchalantly, as he started reading.

"Who am I - I cannot say," Fenris started while stuttering with the words. "My seasons they change from day to day / Poet priest assassin thief / My magic dispels my disbelief."

"It's got magic in it, so you probably don't want to read further," she said defensively, but nonchalantly kept drinking her wine.

He gave a short, contained smile and looked at her, "And what if I do?"

"Suit yourself," she said nonchalantly.

Fenris turned his eyes back to the paper and kept reading, "Who am I – I'm just a pack of lies. I'm a tower of cards, I'm the yarn of a bard…. I'm the jest of a fool, I'm a glittering jewel… I'm just a candy coated castle in the sky."

"Told you," Hawke interrupted.

He ignored her and continued, "So tear down your lying idols and let your spirit free… Stop searching and find, stop listening and hear, stop looking and simply see... Do what thou wilt! And no other thing! Wander alone in the crown and sing... And fear not the taunts of the man and his masses, 'cause when disaster comes knocking it's us fools who'll be laughing!"

Hawke snorted and shook her head, but he kept reading, "Follow lord fortune wherever he leads and petition your angels to tend to your needs…Go crazy, go wild, get wasted, get wise…Wake up from your nightmares, stop believing their lies! Get active, get radical, get real and get magical... Aspire to the heights and embrace all your lows. Give in to desire…let the flood of lust flow."

"Scareeeh," she interrupted.

"Now the fruit of the knowledge of good and ill was but the necessary evil of a bitter pill. But the fruit of the tree of the eternal is the salve to alleviate all that is mortal …See the kiss of the cobra both kills and cures, and the only defence is a heart that's pure. It's a drug to unhinge the temples door, and the key to the kingdom where love is the law."

"Cheesy alert," Hawke interrupted him mockingly.

He grinned at her and continued, "Let reason and passion be your left and your right, no more divided than day is from night. Then unite by your art, your head and your heart, for emptiness ends when eternity starts…"

"That's actually not bad," Hawke said mockingly.

Fenris sighed and finished the last bit, "So let go, and let rip, take a ride, take a trip. Get to work, get to bed, get a life. Get a grip. Take leave of your senses, your cunning pretences. Pick up your beds and tear down your defences…And retrace the course of the spring to its source... In the time before mind, where Maker alone knows. In the garden of your heart, where the tree of life grows." His expression loosened and seemed deep in thought.

"I told you not to read it," Hawke said grumpily while looking up and taking a sip from the wine.

He frowned and put the paper back in the book. "That was –"

"Foolish," she finished his sentence quickly and smiled innocently.

He gave her a broad smile back, "Magical, if you don't mind the irony," he said flatly and looked at the fire. "And a great slap in the face to reality."

"Got any other rhymes, Pomponius Secundus?" she asked sarcastically.

He laughed quietly, so nobody would hear them, "How about – To let people in she will not allow, Her hair is red and she acts like a clown, Alas, to end this stupid rhyme, For I am no poet and we're losing time - To be a monk, she is too loud, To be a queen, she is too proud."

"Too proud to be a queen?" she asked bewilderedly. "Well, you have me there. I prefer to be a hero lurking in the shadows with my mindblowing stratagems and weakness for doing the right thing. Saving kittens and setting up orphanages for stray puppies and lost souls."

"I'm glad you didn't put me in that lot," Fenris said in amusement while he placed his head against the wall, remembering her angry speech to him on the roof a long time ago.

She frowned and rested her head against the wall too, "Of course I wouldn't do that. You're your own man – a strong, witty, insufferable, but nevertheless free and fairly law-abiding man," she said in amusement and turned her head that was resting on the wall to look at him. "Even with those chains you refuse to throw away."

At that last bit, he turned his head that was against the wall to look at her with a curiously warm, but carefully contained smile, "You see a great deal, don't you?"

She grinned shortly and looked him straight in his green eyes, "I see it, but I don't tell you. Why should I?"

She was right, she didn't need to spell it out for him, grapple and walk straight into his impenetrable wall of self-doubt and loathing. It was pointless and unnecessary. What she did instead was show him the world he was missing out on, give him a sense of security and kick him into starting to make his own decisions on whatever he desired. Even that day when she assaulted him through the mask of a back rub and told him she could tease him too if that's what he wanted, she didn't give in and told him firmly that if he wanted to say or do something, he would just have to grow some balls and do it. And that's exactly what he did.

What Hawke saw was a short turmoil boiling across his face, but the last thing she saw was his dark green eyes enveloped in some strange, distinct determination, as he dropped the book and took a hold of her face and in a harrowing second, slammed his lips into hers. And what a kiss that was! – his soft, maddening and feverish lips pressing onto hers like wildfire. Her lips got away from him and she looked at him in wonder, breathing in heavily and he could feel his heart beating like a huge Chantry bell ready to drop. His eyes questioned her telepathically, if it was a mistake, if he frightened her, if she was going to strike him. She inhaled deeply and took a hold of his neck, bringing him closer and he squeezed at her cardigan with a gentle force, then wrapped his arms around her and encaged her in his safe and strong grip. For shame, if it would end. But she kissed him back and entwined her fingers in his hair, and he accidentally bit her lip in a mechanical attempt to hold out the growling moan that was about to come out. She breathed heavily through his lips, as if what he just did was good, and opened her mouth wider, slipping her tongue and meeting his in a whirl of driven force. Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be working, for she let out a groan of pleasure and thrust the nails of her free hand in his vest and hung onto it as if it was the only pole of balance and stability that still held her together. For shame, for shame if it would end here. The heat and the pressure in their little dance, her maddeningly playful tongue and those peach-soft enchanting lips were killing him, he wanted more and more of it, and never for it to stop. To have her so close and wrapped around him, with no teasing or playing around, but just a perfectly blunt and irresistible act of showing him she didn't give one flying copper for his demons, that ravishing and continuing taste of her lips pressing onto his and closing in a powerful peck. And then it was over.


	21. A Stolen Kiss For Every Lover

Fenris looked at her in fear, as the kiss was over, silently asking her, wondering and doubting. Hawke had her arms still wrapped around his neck and his grip was still pulling at her clothes. He didn't know what to do, he was freezing and boiling at the same time; but the tornado of wonder in him didn't seem so singular, as he noticed the turmoil in her face, her confused eyes and her slow breathing. No, he didn't frighten her, that was foolish. But whatever it was, he couldn't help but brush his hand through her hair in an attempt to move it against her ear. She flinched and inhaled quickly, lifting her seemingly terrified gaze at him and searched in his eyes for something he was sure he wouldn't understand. But it didn't matter. Just a moment ago, just for a moment, he had her. And it was the most hauntingly rhapsodic and enrapturing feeling in the world. She reached for his hand that was resting on her cheek and as she inhaled again, closed her eyes and felt his warmth. His look, in a harrowing second, turned so tantalizingly sorrowful, it seemed as though she would break there in front of him and turn into dust and he would wake up.

Fenris watched her close her eyes and feel his hand on her cheek, then inhaled deeply himself and slowly came closer to her again. He would keep the glimpse of this moment forever with him; it was like a beautiful painting of a peaceful, warm being sitting with her head tilted on her right, eyes closed and feeling the comforting touch of someone who kept her safe in that gentle hold as she smiled.

He ignored all his other voices, his demons and the throb of fear in his chest – they just became a hollow beat in a harrowing deafness and even that agony of silence was wiped away and barricaded. He gently placed his lips on her forehead and he could feel her smiling under his chin. She lifted her head up and he quickly caught her silvery grin and rapturing eyes and took it as a welcome to push his lips against hers again as he dragged her closer. This time though, their lips met in a gentle press, which made the creaking and throbbing of the flames nearby clash in their ears as if they could feel the fire through the sounds. Or maybe it was her, that was the gentle little flame. As he ran his hand on the side of her neck and continued the slow kiss, she slipped her hand through his half-open vest and rested it on his heart. Was it even beating? Only she could tell. The warmth and security of her hand on his chest maddened him, it made him growl with some form of frustration for her to widen her mouth again. As if she understood, she complied with his wish and he met the familiar, bewitching feel of her tongue twirling into his, followed by the perfect dance of lips closing and opening again. And again and again, Maker let it never stop.

His ear flinched at the sound of a door opening. Hawke quickly left his lips in a rush and widened her eyes, then forcefully pulled him up with her and murderously whispered to him to get behind the giant curtain.

"Love, is that you?" Leandra's voice came from the upper floor in the deathly silence that vibrated into the two's bodies like a freezing rush. She came rested her hands on the balustrade as she came into sight and Hawke scratched the back of her head, hiding the terrifying tension in her throat. "What are you still doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep," Hawke said surprisingly calmly and danced with her eyes from her Mother to the curtain and back to her Mother again, then said in a nonchalant voice, "Thought I'd catch up on my reading."

"And on your wine," Leandra said disapprovingly as she nodded in the distance towards the glasses. "Why are there two glasses?"

Hawke widened her eyes, but controlled them with the same talent and discipline she proved in combat, "I have two hands," she said while stuttering and pressed her eyes at how ridiculous that sounded. Right, perhaps this didn't count as one of her best moments in talent and discipline…

"And a cow has four stomachs, but that doesn't mean it has to use them all at once," Leandra said in annoyance and rubbed her eyes in weariness.

"Now there's an image I won't be getting out of my head," Hawke said sarcastically, while still rushing her eyes from one curtain-covered elf to a sleepy mother in her night robes.

"Is there something on your mind, pup?" Leandra asked in concern and started climbing down the stairs.

"Nooo, nooo, nothing's on my mind," Hawke said almost half-shouting and rushed to the stairs and up at her. "I mean, yes! There is something, in fact."

Leandra stopped her decline and looked at her bewilderedly, "Well what is it, love?"

 _Fuck_ this. Hawke led battles more dangerous and seemingly life-threatening than this particular encounter in this particular… not at all familiar situation. This was outrageous. She got double-ambushed, tied, gagged and even imprisoned at some point, fought foes in so many overpowering numbers she couldn't even count that high and she had still managed to keep her head clear, follow her strategy and even find the time to shout directions at her companions.  _This,_ no, this was – She had to pull herself together.

She pretended to sigh in desperation. "I don't know what to wear for my name-day. It's so frustrating."

Leandra raised an eyebrow and Hawke swallowed heavily for she was certain that her mother wouldn't let herself fooled by something so ridiculously uncharacteristic of her to say. The following second however, she felt her inner soul sigh in relief as her mother laughed softly and caught her by the shoulder, "Did the girls place a bet on you that you wouldn't dare to wear something nice this year at least?"

"I suspect so, but that's not the point. I just don't know how to dress properly… and I want to throw on something special, at least this once. For your sake," she said calmly and looked at her.

Leandra sighed. "Well, since you've already baffled me to such an extent that you practically slapped the weariness off my face, how about we go and find you a nice outfit, shall we?" she said warmly and dragged her gently up the stairs and went for her room.

As her mother entered she quickly looked behind to see if Fenris had managed to leave. She saw strips of white hair disappearing behind the walls of the first hallway and she closed the door strongly so he would know it was safe for him to make his way out.

**Outside Hawke's Estate**

As Fenris closed the main door slowly, a tornado of thoughts kicked at his head and he had to sit down. He rushed at the bench of the giant stone columns in front of the house and sat down, allowing himself to breathe normally again.

Though the obvious questions should have darted at his head, the only thought that stirred was –  _Venhedis._ She didn't tell anybody about her name-day or that she was planning on something to do about it. Was he supposed to give her a present? Was he even invited? He rolled his eyes and brushed his hair away from his forehead as he leaned back on the bench.

Foolish questions. He could laugh at himself now if he was in a better state of functioning.

He had her. He had her in his arms, he felt her hair and her warm touch. He kissed her lips.

…And now what to do. He felt like a character in an ancient comedy that was thrown back, literally, by life and the gods in the heavens were laughing at him –  _There's your freedom! What are you going to do now, except look around the square, looking like a drunken smiling idiot?_

Oh he would so laugh at himself if his head wasn't blowing up with the impact she had left on him and his… everything.

* * *

 

**Morning, The Hanged Man**

"Heh-hey, to what do I owe the pleasure so early in the morning?" Varric asked Fenris joyfully as he came into his room. He locked the door nonchalantly while ignoring Varric's colossally raised eyebrow. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Varric asked fearfully and raised his palms in peace. "Look, whatever you heard, I swear I didn't do it! It was all Rivaini!"

"What in blazes are you talking about?" Fenris asked grumpily.

"Oh, uh… never mind. Just a heads-up though, there's a rumour going on that you're missing some… parts," Varric asked awkwardly while scratching his head.

"Poor pirate," Fenris said calmly while shaking his head.

"Well can you blame her? The woman doesn't know how to lose. She cheats her way through everything. I think she even cheated at cheating, if that makes any sense."

"That makes no sense," Fenris said flatly and sat at the table in front of him. "What  _the hell_ is it that you're eating?"

Varric cleared his throat and let out a poor Antivan accent, "Prosciutto crudo a la Bianca."

Fenris looked at him as if he was an idiot and the dwarf laughed, but he ignored him, "Did you know Hawke has a name-day?"

"Elf, even my morning shit has a name-day. Practically anything you give birth to has. Or is that too snobby a concept in Tevinter?"

"Well, for one, they don't consider  _everything_  that comes out of them worthy of a name-day," Fenris said grumpily, "and second, they call it a birthday."

"But the day you were born is the day you get your name. It doesn't make sense. Why would they simply call it birth-day. Are they fascinated with the wonders of the birth canal?"

"Seems a miracle to me that some people even manage to find their way out of a birth canal," Fenris said sarcastically.

Varric chuckled, "Oh I like your grumpy humour in the morning. Really gives me a kick to start making the good jokes around here."

"Why try so much when you're a perfectly good joke just by standing here?" Fenris said sarcastically and smirked.

Varric gave him a mocking face. "Boohoo on the funny odd dwarf. I'm about to cry, Serah."

"Please don't," Fenris said flatly.

"If you try to crack a smile once in a while, I might spare you of that particular agony," Varric said sarcastically.

"Don't hold your breath," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"I won't need to. Hawke might be coming here any second," Varric said subtly and grinned. He noticed the elf flinch at the name and look behind, as if he was afraid that a ghost would swoop at his back and strangle him. "So, while we're on that, you said something about a name-day?"

"I understand it's soon," Fenris said calmly. "Didn't you know?"

"Of course I know," Varric said charmingly. "I know everything there is to know in this town.  _Everything,_ " he accentuated the last part with an evil grin and the elf swallowed heavily.

"And when were you planning on telling me? A month or two after it happened?"

Varric sighed. "I didn't tell you because I knew you couldn't keep a secret."

Fenris frowned angrily. "Excuse me?"

"Look," Varric said in a lower voice, as if the walls had ears – judging from all the ridiculousness he saw in his company, they might as well have had – "I had a mastermind plan cooked up to surprise her. Nobody mentioned anything to her and she didn't talk about her name-day either. I thought if I filled you in on the details, there would be a possibility that you'd just go and blab it at her and everything would be ruined."

"Are you joking?" Fenris asked angrily. "From all you crazy people, I'm the last one to fail at keeping silent."

"I know, I know," Varric said in annoyance. "But still, couldn't risk it. I was gonna tell you the day before it was supposed to happen anyway."

"Well, it is too late for that now. Start talking," Fenris said angrily.

Varric intertwined his hands on the table and started, "Ok, so here's the deal…"

After he told him everything, Fenris scowled and his mouth hung open, "You are remarkably and positively insane."

* * *

 

**Sunset, Hawke's Estate**

Hawke was taking Mojo on his evening walks through the town square. The dog sniffed every bush and ivy wall, thoroughly checking for any kind of foreign touch, then proceeded to happily remark his territory. The city lay under the usual curfew and the stones of Hightown seemed darker, more drab, suggestive of a fortress, the streets narrow and gloomy. The enclosed their splendour, unlike the grand fantastical stone facades of Ferelden architecture. She had walked her dog every evening through this unlawfully busy square ever since she returned, though it was quite darker now, more… as if it was enveloped in a radiance of encaging and unhinged rancour. It felt as if the walls were closing in on her and a sinister quality of restlessness hung around it. She couldn't quite put a finger on it.

An execution had taken place that day. A woman drowned her own children into the sea after her apostate husband had been killed by Templars. All her children bore the …well, curse of magic, for lack of a better word and in a fit of horrifying desperation she thought it was better that she ended their life now rather than be taken in and abused by the Templars.

Hawke had a natural distaste for such things, unlike a surprising number of nobles in Kirkwall. She edged towards the Keep where it happened, gazing upon the ground and wishing she wouldn't be so jarred by the horrible remnants of the cruelty that had taken place that afternoon. There was no corpse or gallows there, but she felt it and tried not to imagine it so much.

Her father always cautioned her back in Ferelden not to "enjoy" these spectacles, but rather to place herself mentally in the position of the victim if she was to learn the maximum from what she saw.  _To be careful_. It could easily be her there one day, or she could end up at the hands of the Templars, which was much, much worse.

The crowds at executions were often merciless and unruly, taunting the victim sometimes, out of fear, she thought. Of course, in Kirkwall such things were a rarity if ever. Most of the times the prisoners would just rot in the Keep's prison or they were simply terminated in private, but this one was… particularly of interest, for the people. No doubt that this was not the Viscount's idea and in his better days, he would have never allowed it, but she suspected he had no choice under the wishes of a certain irritating figure… no other than Knight-Commander Meredith. It would be a warning for those who harboured apostates, to know that this was their destiny – they would go mad and become dangerous and cruel, just like the "abominations" they hid from the Templars. Preposterous…

It brought her comfort to know that her father was as intelligent a lad as they could get, teaching them to move swiftly, keep their unperturbed look as well as their mana deeply hidden, shifting quickly from the observation of Templars. It became a talent for them to move with such instinctive grace. She had always felt affected by the fact that her companions knew of her secret… which just magically, forgive the pun, travelled from Gamlen's mouth to Athenril, then Varric and Isabela… Anders and Merrill would have known either way and Fenris found out because she had to land that forcewave before the demons killed him. Sebastian was still unsuspecting though, even with her drunken tantrum-speech, bitching about Andrastianism. Thank the gods for that. Yes,  _gods,_ suck it Choirboy.

"It's as though we're invisible," little Hawke once said to Malcolm as they were passing through a foreign village where an execution had taken place along the battlements. "Because we don't really belong here and we will soon take our leave."

"Yes, but we are not invisible, remember it," her father whispered.

"But who died here today?" little Hawke asked with a sorrowful look. "People are cheering  _and_ weeping. Listen!"

He didn't answer. She grew uneasy. "Father?"

"A man who betrayed the kingdom under the false pretences of a reformer. He was conspiring with the Orlesians and was going to sell out his own. Or so they say. Remember Orlais, love? We gave you those old little satin shoes for your name-day," he asked sweetly, diverting her from the whole complicated explanation.

"What happened to him?" she asked sadly, ignoring his witty attempt to distract her.

Malcom sighed and looked away as they were elbowing their way through the busy crowd of the village. With all his wit, he couldn't lie to his eldest born. "He died today, hanged and then he was burned. Thank the Maker he was already dead before the flames rose."

Hawke frowned and thought on it, "You wished mercy on the betrayer?"

"I wish mercy for any man," Malcom said bitterly. He beckoned for her daughter to follow on a narrower street to make their way faster back to the abandoned house by the skirts of the village where they hid.

"Even a …" she whispered "dark mage? Surely you must not feel the same for such people."

He didn't answer. Now that Hawke remembered as she walked her dog, he probably didn't know how to answer. "They are far worse than this common betrayer, you know that!" she continued.

He had made it quite clear just how wrong the ways of dark magic were, but even so, he didn't know how to answer, present Hawke thought. He had more mercy than he wanted to admit, maybe. He couldn't answer her, but what he could do, was divert attention. "Are you going to argue with me until the end of the world!" he said a bit angrily. "I know that you think greater truths will come out from the strife between teacher and student, but I believe you need to let my lessons settle in quiet at least for the space of five little minutes in your mind before you begin your counterattack."

"Don't be so provoked, Father," she said sharply and narrowed her eyes.

"It's not the end of the world, love. We have enough time to debate this further when we find a proper home," he said delicately as they finally got out of the village.

Young Hawke smiled, but bitterly. She wanted to articulate, somehow against her father's indomitable command, a strong presentiment that they were all living in their last days, that is was the end of the world, and it was inscribed in their hearts, because they were apostates. But if she said it again, her father would only scold her for being so morbid.

As she stayed silent, her father smiled. "Ah, my little pup does listen to me," he said in an ironic voice. "Yes, I am glad that the betrayer is no more. But to rejoice at the end of something is not to approve this endless parade of human cruelty. I wish it were otherwise. Public sacrifice becomes grotesque in every respect. It dulls the senses of the populace. It makes people go to unnatural extremes that they wish they'd never be in if it were they who played the central character. They enjoy the sight of a man dying as it if was a wedding. It's just pure hypocrisy."

Hawke wanted to retort with something, more of a simple question that had to do with  _hypocrisy._  Weren't those bad people just as bad as any dangerous and ill-intentioned mage? Why did they have to be imprisoned since birth, but ordinary men only met it, or the end of the dagger, once they proved their danger graphically? It was the same kind of danger and the same potential, the same result, but through different means.

Hawke had been merciless for a long time, at least when it came to blood mages. It angered her that they stained her race and every day they made it harder for people to believe in mages. But the same went with any other cruel being.

She wondered if she was fooling herself in believing she could live in this city free of fear and eternal vigilance. The past year had been… very gentle on her. Compared to the usual horrific fiascos that haunted her life in Ferelden, at least this last year had been surprisingly peaceful and seemingly uneventful. Well, except for…

"Mojo, no!" she screamed after the mabari as he started peeing on the Chantry statues. "Well… have at it. Their god made you, why not show him His own creation?" she said in amusement and waited for the dog to finish his business.

She noticed the two dark-draped shadows in the distance a while back, but she decided to ignore them. She walked back to her estate as if nothing happened and inhaled heavily before opening the door.

* * *

 

**Hawke's Estate**

As she came in the hallway, two fully armoured and masked Templars waited in the main room with Varric in their hands and raised their palms in command at her. "I'm sorry, Hawke," Varric shouted in despair. "I'm so sorry!"

"Where's my mother!" Hawke screamed and tried to draw out her sword.  _Blasted._ She didn't take the sword with her. She looked at them with murder in her eyes and commanded aggressively, "Answer me!"

The Templars drew out their swords and shields and starting approaching her, while still dragging Varric in front as a barrier.

"NO!" she howled assaultively. "You will not," she said firmly and drew out the fire from the fireplace to barricade herself, while they flew into a tornado around her and she started only faintly levitating, "have me!"

The flames encircled her and shots of electricity darted in and out without shooting at them yet. She started making a horrible sound and the floor quaked heavily beneath them as she pointed her hand at the ground. The throbbing and horror unbalanced everything and as the Templars and Varric approached her, Fenris and Aveline came from the right corner and Anders and Merrill from the right corner. As they ran to her and shout, two wall-doors opened in front of them and a terribly hideous shade came out of each and horrified them.

Everyone screamed and howled, jumping and ready to attack, until it occurred to them that the two shades were actually spitting well-made puppets that just fell face-down on the ground. Hawke's hideous demonic screaming started lowering down as the flames faded away from her and she finished in a very morbid, "Mwa-ha-ha-hah" as she came down to the floor. She smiled at everyone and gave another ironic "…Hah."

The Templars got their helmets out, revealing Isabela and Gamlen who looked excruciatingly terrified, as did everyone else who was frowning murderously at her. She knew about their master joke plan to scare the shit out of her for her name-day and cooked an equally horrific vengeful counter-surprise.

"Maker's bloody testicles, Hawke," Varric shouted as he breathed rapidly with a hand on his heart.

"You scared the BAGINGAS out of me, you crazy bitch," Isabela screamed and quickly sat down at the table, leaving Gamlen collapsed on the floor, either from the scare or the heavy armour.

"You  _all_ had it coming," Hawke said confidently as she grabbed a shade-puppet up and mocked them with it.

"I told you this was a viciously stupid idea!" Aveline screamed angrily at Varric.

"I thought the Dread Wolf actually took you," Merrill said as she hyperventilated and held onto Anders' robe. "Mythal…my legs are trembling more now than when I saw my first shade."

Anders was a bit trembling, but far less than laughing and enjoying the look on everybody else's face when Hawke played them so well. No doubt he thought their surprise plan was extremely impertinent and now they got a taste of their own medicine.

"I'm sorry for whoever was  _against_ this little act… but still took part," Hawke said confidently and grinned to no end. "Ah, now, anyone fancy a cup of tea?" she said nonchalantly as she helped Gamlen up.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Varric said grumpily. "Seems to be," he grimaced and coughed as he choked, "unhealthy."

"Happy... name-day," Aveline said awkwardly.

"Nobody takes me seriously... I warned you people," Hawke said firmly, ignoring Aveline. Then she sang childishly, "Nobody takes me seriously / Nobody likes you when you're twenty-free."

"23?" Varric asked and scowled. "I thought you were 21 a year ago."

"I returned one day  _before_ my name-day. Suck it, I was smart."

"Oh, this isn't over," Varric said in annoyance.

"I need to find Leandra," Gamlen muttered while still trembling, "and tell her that I love her."

* * *

 

**After everybody cooled down…**

"You actually got me presents… as if this charming stunt wasn't enough?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"We considered it a form of compensation for our impertinence," Varric said sweetly and beckoned her to open them up.

"Wait," Isabela said and approached her. "You have to guess which is from who."

Hawke sighed in annoyance. "My, what a challenge. You people sure know how to make things  _such_  fun," she muttered sarcastically.

She looked into each sack and caressed her maxillary as she examined the contents carefully.

" ' _How to find your Glory Spot. Where no man has ever managed to reach_ '. I take it the inappropriate book is from…." Hawke said perceptively while looking at the pirate. "Not you."

"Darn," Isabela scowled. "I knew that it would seem too obvious."

"Aveline?" Hawke asked confidently and the woman nodded awkwardly. "Alright, then this hideous and revolting lace dress must be from Izzy."

"It's lace," Isabela said in annoyance, then winked. "You can never go wrong with lace."

"Neither can you go wrong with a fist in your face," Hawke rhymed sarcastically while smiling. "So… hmph. The little deer painting is Merrill's."

"I thought they looked so adorable - like ugly brown and furry hallas," Merrill said and smiled.

"I guess this other book is from Anders and this incredibly ugly magic hood is from … Justice," Hawke said sarcastically as she held up the hood with two fingers as it was a dead weasel. "Way to kill my fun, mage-lover."

"It comes with the incredibly ugly mage robes too," Anders said sarcastically.

"Thanks. Come to think of it, it will go really well on my new shade scarecrow. His name is Bill after all, you gotta give him at least a more intimidating look."

"And if you draw red lipstick on it, it will be the spitting image of you," Anders retorted joyfully.

Fenris watched Hawke in silence and felt his tension rising up. He had lost hours trying to think and find a present for her, and he thought if he got her something ridiculously stupid and then at the last minute give her the real... less stupid present, she would appreciate it more. But his tension was monstrous more from the thought that they had not seen each other at all since that one night and he had positively no clue how to act.

In the meantime, Hawke grimaced mockingly at Anders and picked up the book. "Alright… the book is from Varric. ' _All Things Magic: What You Never Dared To Ask'_ " she sighed. "It's about me, isn't it?"

"Nope," Varric said sweetly. "It's about the  _magic_ adventures of an incredibly pretty apostate by the name of Jill de Bard Bibanka von Hawp. Nothing to do with you, Shade-Face."

Fenris burst into soft laughter and Hawke frowned at him. "What are you laughing at, Casper?"

"Who is… Casper?" he asked in amusement.

"If you don't know, I can't sit here for an eternity and explain," Hawke said and rolled her eyes. "Too many complex terms might make your white head blow up in a flock of a thousand little snowflakes."

"I think I liked you better when you were turning into an abomination," Fenris said sarcastically.

"It's never too late to admit it and join us in our freaks of nature club, Fenris," Hawke retorted sarcastically.

Fenris lifted his eyebrows innocently, "But then who will sit by and laugh at you while observing you in your natural habitat?"

"I'm guessing –"

Fenris interrupted her with mimicking a mouth with his hand. "See this," he gestured with the mouth-hand near his head and pressed his eyes closed. "This is just irritating noise to me, going swords-swords-swords-I-love-barking-howling-and-red-things-clown-clown-clown."

Hawke stuck her tongue out at him and then looked at the last item. "Then this leaves this uh… knob? ... to you, Fenris," she said awkwardly and raised an eyebrow.

"It's called the Magical Ball of Everyone's Fortune," he said nonchalantly and grinned in his chair.

"I'm afraid to ask but, how does it work?" she asked and rolled her eyes.

He smirked as he got up and approached her. He took the ball out of her hand and gestured, as Hawke frowned murderously at him. "You just wrap it around your head," he said and only gestured with his hand, "And then you shut up for eternity."

"…And then she ripped his head off," Varric whispered in storytelling mode.

To their surprise, Hawke burst into laughter and held onto his shoulder for balance. "Good one, but seriously, where's my real gift?"

"This is it," Fenris said flatly as he grinned.

Hawke stopped her laughing and started to frown. "Really? Then why don't you be the first to give it a test run," she said firmly and shoved the ball in his mouth.

* * *

 

**A few hours and stopped counting at four bottles of liquor later…**

"Another round?" Isabela asked eagerly.

"You finished the last bottle  _already_?" Hawke asked drunkenly in her chair.

"Another round at Truth or Dare. And yeah, the bottle's going empty soon," Isabela said joyfully. "Boy, Kitten is waaay down," she said as she looked at a tightly sleeping Merrill curled up in an armchair. Anders left because Justice kept popping up and telling them that alcohol was bad and they shouldn't make Anders drink it anymore and Aveline left after a while as well because she had to get up in the morning for duty.

Hawke swayed her head and caught the look of Fenris who was sitting in front of her. She inhaled forcefully and asked in a sweet drunken voice, "Where's my baby?"

In his besotted state, he felt very relaxed and taken, so he was about to respond with ' _here_ ', but thank the gods for Varric who outraced him. "Your baby's right here, Madam."

"Not you, Varric," Hawke said drunkenly. "But you're a sweetheart, … sweet-, sweet-…"

"…Varric?" the dwarf finished her sentence.

"Cheeks!" Hawke shouted and swayed her head again. "Where's my bottle?"

"Here," Fenris said in a hoarse voice and gave it to her.

"Enough! Truth or dare Hawke," Isabela said commandingly.

Hawke rolled her eyes and looked up. "Dare. No wait! You've far grotesque taste for my idea… idea for my taste. Whatever. Truth!"

"No backsies," Isabela said firmly.

"Please don't make me put on that stupid dress," Hawke cried impatiently.

"Oh, fine, I'll sex it down this time…" Isabela thought. "Now here's something I've always wondered. Find out the colour of Fen's underclothes."

Hawke looked unperturbed and turned her head to Fenris. She splashed a shot of fire at him without it actually reaching him. As he flew sideways to avoid the immediately disappearing fire, she quickly tackled him and landed on top of him. She immobilized him as he tried to get up, but then she said, "Wait, I know that one. It's 'none'."

"Woah, how would you know that?" Varric asked in suspicion.

Her head swayed and she had a drunken smile. "I grabbed his butt."

"And  _he_ let you? Lucky bitch," Isabela said in amazement. "Why don't you let me do that, Fen?"

"For starters, because you call me ' _Fen_ '," he said grumpily on the ground.

"Don't sweat it Izzy, there's nothing much to it," Hawke said and smiled, then burst into childish laughter. "Literally."

"Get –  _off_ ," Fenris growled at Hawke.

" _Flat –_ butt," she said childishly, then got off of him and sat back in her chair. "Alright, truth or dare, Varric."

"Tr- Dare," he said quickly.

"Give me the little Antivan brandy bottle you've been hiding in your jacket," she said cunningly.

Varric sighed and reached into his jacket. "Fine. But it's only because this is your special day. You're cut off from this poison of damned souls for eternity from now on."

"We'll discover that next year," she said firmly and opened the bottle.

"Elf?" Varric called, while turning his head to Fenris, who was dangling his head with dizziness as he sat back in his chair.

He brushed his forehead with his hand and inhaled wearily, "Truth."

"Do you have at least  _one_ really happy memory? If you do, what is it?" Varric asked cunningly.

"No doubt and precisely it was the time … Precisely …What did you ask me again?"

"Not about what time it is, precisely," Varric said sarcastically while laughing at his drunken state. "Tell me your happiest memory."

"Right, yes…" he frowned and remained lost in thought or he passed out with his eyes open. "Precisely it was the time…" He dozed off in graceful silence.

Varric chuckled like an old man at how the elf fell asleep right in the middle of his courteous sentence. "Precisely and no doubt it was the time, the time,  _precisely_  it was the time…" he imitated him childishly.

"Time to make coffee," Isabela said in amusement. "That's also my gift to you, Hawke. Special delivery from my mother country."

"You mean special delivery straight from the substance traffickers right in the Docks," Hawke said while smirking.

"A simple thank you would have sufficed, love," Isabela said while grinning. "Especially since I'm the only one who knows how to prepare it," she said assertively and got up.

"I wanna see that," Varric said eagerly and got up himself. "Hawke?"

Hawke was holding her head with her eyes closed in irritation. "Ok, sit tight, soldier. The magic beans are coming." He looked at Merrill. "Rivaini, how 'bout you carry Daisy to the guest bedroom?"

As they got into the kitchen and Isabela got out the beans and smashed them thoroughly on the piece of cloth, she asked him, "What's up with those two?"

"You mean Pixie and Dixie?" Varric asked charmingly.

"Let me guess, Dixie is Hawke, because she's a dick, and in fact,  _Pixie_ is Fenris."

"No, that's what I named my manbreasts," Varric said in amusement.

"Did you name every hair on your chest, too?" Isabela chuckled.

"There are not enough names in the world, my good woman…"

"But really… you lost the bet. That much is clear. I'm still full proof that she's gonna get the hots for Anders once she realizes she has to accept her magic and use it to do justice because of her weakness to always do the right thing and yadda, yadda. Yet, those two are so…"

"Weird? Insufferable? Totally nuts to the bone?"

"Defensive with each other. Like one second they're good ol' friends and it seems as if there's some weird telepathy between them, the other second they're competing for who has the bigger cock."

Varric burst into laughter, "Oh I really do wonder who has the bigger one."

"Oh, please," Isabela said while grinning. "Hawke's a scary little tomboy, but she's still a lady."

"Lady?" Varric asked in amusement. "You're  _drunk_  as a  _nug._ "

"Varric," Isabela smirked, "Let me ask you this. What makes Bianca a leady? Your Bianca, of course."

Varric cupped his maxillary and thought for a second, "Well that's easy – she's just the perfect and equal amount of part-graceful and part-bad to the bone, just for me, of course."

Isabela grinned. "Then here you have it."

Varric leaned on the table and eyed her insistently.

"Are you really wondering how coffee is made or are you sniffing up a bet again, old man?"

"A whole sovereign," Varric said charmingly. "That we'll find them both passed out in graceful, boring, non-sexual peace. I'm telling you, Hawke's not that kind of girl."

Isabela grinned, "Fine, lose your money. A whole sovereign it is – and my bet is that they're already going at each other. Dry humping, _at least._ "

"You're on, Madam," Varric said firmly.

* * *

 

**_Meanwhile on the upper level…_ **

Hawke opened her eyes after they left, as it was more painful when she could see only pitch-black and felt even more dizzy. She got up from her chair near the balustrade and walked into her room to get some spindleweed. Whatever that ' _coffee_ ' thing was, she didn't have the patience to sit and wait as the room spun around with her.

As she walked inside her room, a set of familiar hands got her by the shoulders and shoved her into the door. "I thought they'd never leave," he growled impatiently as he squeezed at her clothes and pushed her into the door.

"Fenri-," she tried to say but he started kissing her neck surprisingly slowly for the aggressive drunken state he was in. She inhaled deeply and looked up, biting at her lip so she wouldn't make any sounds. So…sooo many sounds. He went up and down her neck and at one point bit her so incredibly good that he put a hand over her mouth. Did he have to make things even bett- … worse… She felt him pressing against her and removed his hands from her mouth. "Fenris… they didn-  _ah_ ," she gasped and gave a short moan as he bit her again, " _leahhve_."

"All I see is you," he said bluntly, his warm breath on her neck. He continued his maddening kisses and short bites on her ear. His hand held her so tightly at the back she almost couldn't breathe even without him teasing her to the point of screaming in pleasure.

 _She had to pull herself together._ She looked away to the stairs to make sure Isabela and Varric weren't coming back yet. Her eyes were trying to go up and in the back of her head, as Fenris teased her so cruelly and effectively.  _Motherff-_ he grabbed her face quickly and turned it to look at him and he slammed his lips into hers. He tightened his grip and growled in pleasure as she kissed him back. She led him away from the door so she could close it shut, then she stopped them in place. She enjoyed the roaring heat and the pleasure of his incredibly insistent tongue for three more seconds as the room spun with her, then pushed him forcefully on the bed. She sat on top of him but didn't kiss him as he thought she would. Instead she grabbed the hand that was going for her face and looked at him with a serious face, "Fenris, we have to stop."

Fenris breathed ferociously as he eyed her with a lustful aggressive look. "I don't want to," he said with an unfaltering scowl and tried to lift himself up to reach her.

She stopped him by the shoulder, "Fenris," she said aggressively. "They can come back at any minute, they didn't actually leave the estate," she sighed and pressed her eyes tight, feeling the wondrously strong hard on that was bumping at and under her pants. "I am asking you nicely to stop before I punch you unconscious. You know I'm not afraid to do it."

He leaned up on his elbows and looked at her in silence as she eyed him insistently. He growled in annoyance, nostrils flaring and heavy breathing. "As you wish."

"Thank you," she said firmly, then grinned childishly. "You might wanna wait here for a few minutes before coming back out."

* * *

 

**_A few of those minutes later…_ **

"I'm telling you, it was a mermaid. It had big luscious shell breasts and a long delicious little tail-"

"Shh," Varric whispered to Isabela as they went up the stairs with three goblets of coffee in their hands.

Hawke and Fenris were both dozed off in separate armchairs, in perfect, blissful sleepy delight.

"My money, Siren Pants," Varric said firmly.

"This isn't over," Isabela said in annoyance.

"Wake up, Sleepy Tough Pants you," Varric sang sweetly. "And elf."

"Mmm, coffee," Hawke said in a child-like voice. "Give," she muttered like a stoned primitive and stretched her arm out.

"Fen-Feeeeen," Isabela shouted in his ear and he opened his eyes quickly.

"Away with you, wench," he said angrily.

"I heard you the first nine times, I got the point. Coffee?" she asked while smiling.

"Oh… thank you," he said flatly.

"This shit tastes like… like…" Hawke said and scowled.

"Please don't say shit," Varric said and tensed up. "It's brown and I'm drunk."

"Paradise," Hawke finished with widened eyes.

"Wait, I didn't put your sugar in," Isabela said in annoyance.

Hawke flinched away and said in a paranoid-like voice. "No sugar, I hate sugar."

"Woah, fine, jeez," Isabela said with a raised eyebrow. "Fen?"

He didn't answer. He drank the coffee and made strange faces.

"Fenris?"

"Yes, Isabela?" he answered promptly with lifted, unimpressed eyebrows.

"Sugar?"

"No, thank you."

"You two are weird," Varric muttered grumpily. "How can you not like sugar with your drink?"

"Because it tastes like a fairy's butt," Hawke said drunkenly.

"Speaking from experience, Madam?" Varric asked sarcastically.

"Of course. I've been kissing your ass for years."

Isabela chuckled, "Truth or dare, Hawke."

"Dare!... Wait, NO! Not again. Fuck me," Hawke said in annoyance.

"I give the dare, not you, but you can hold me to that demand later," Isabela said charmingly. "Since you've been kissing Varric's ass for years now, how about you give the other end a try?"

Hawke raised an eyebrow, "You mean like – eww."

"His mouth, you dirty pervert," Isabela said ironically. "His charming storytelling lips."

Hawke stared blankly with an open mouth, as if she just realized something. "Hey, you're right. I never kissed the poor bastard."

"No need for such graphic displays of affection," Varric said awkwardly. "Bianca's gonna get jealous."

Fenris laughed softly, realizing just how misleading that could have sounded and Hawke picked right up on it. She got up and smiled "It's not technically cheating if you get it from a girl with the same name, is it? Nope, I don't think it is."

"Andraste's tits, damn you, Hawke," Varric said and scowled, trying to defend himself and sink lower into the chair, as if that would have made him disappear.

"Oh boohoo on the taken dwarf," she said in annoyance and caught his face still. "Come here you!" She gave him a powerful peck with an intended loud  _Muuuah_ and then shoved his face away. Varric remained stunned and pale with widened eyes and started blinking repeatedly.

"Did you slip me the tongue?!" Varric shouted in outrage.

"NO! That was the other Bianca trying to get past me," she said in amusement. "Hand on my heart!"

"You evil conniving minx of the unholy and dreaded undergods," Varric said angrily. "You-"

Then his train of frustrated insults stopped as he realized he tasted  _cider_ on Hawke's lips, which was what  _only_  Fenris had from all of them, because he was the only one who liked the half-sweet half-sour taste of steeped apples.


	22. Morning After Pill

Varric was so terribly drunk, so sodding horrifically besotted, a butt-ugly abomination could have kissed him and he wouldn't have defended himself. In that particular tempered with train of thought, he thought about the  _cider_  that only Fenris had drunk and that he felt on Hawke's lips and all he could think of was –  _Sweet seventh son of a seventh son, that means_ I  _practically kissed that elf. Oh no…_

"Caution, fluid going back up," Varric said in terror as he felt his insides going up in a rush.

"Quick – the can next to my bed!" Hawke shouted and the dwarf immediately rushed to it. After he finished spilling his insides out, he sighed and got up. Now that the dizziness started to fade away just a little bit, he noticed the air in her room was way hotter, even though she kept the door partly open.  _No…it can't be._

"Feeling better?" Hawke asked Varric sweetly as he came out.

"Much, much worse," Varric said in a horrified state.

"Well… I'll pretend I'm not  _that_ hurt that the first thing you do after I kiss you is to  _vomit_ ," she said meanly and narrowed her eyes.

"Believe me, it wasn't  _you_ ," Varric said grumpily and sank back in his armchair.

"Liar," Hawke said childishly.

"Varric, your turn, Fenris has to do you, I mean, ask you -" Isabela said eagerly and Varric flinched.

"Truth."

Fenris frowned and thought of a good question. "Have you ever frequented the services of a … hard-working woman?"

"Never," Varric said firmly. "Well, not a woman, anyway." Everyone scowled at him. "I'm a bullshitter, Andraste's ass. Gosh. What do you take me for?"

"A strange drunk, to say the least," Hawke muttered grumpily. "Isabela," she nodded in her direction in wait.

"Truth," she said and grinned.

"Is it true that you're a lying selfish bitch, beyond all that friendly demeanour?"

"Of course," Isabela said and grinned. "Just as my mother left me."

"Hm. I'm sensing a story there," Varric said perceptively.

"My round is over," Isabela said cunningly. "Next time, maybe." Then she looked at Fenris. "Well?"

Fenris scratched his head and muttered tiredly, "Fine. Dare."

"Aw, that was so easy," Isabela almost purred mischievously. "I dare you to either tell me or show me – or us – how  _big_ you are."

He stared at her blankly as if he didn't hear her, "What?"

"Either whip it out or measure your manhood," Varric translated bluntly.

Fenris blinked a few times in weariness. "What?"

Isabela smirked. "Maybe Hawke can tell us. Did you grab something else other than his butt?" Hawke choked and spilled her coffee and Isabela started laughing, "Are you going to  _exert_ your NO  _muscle_ on this one?"

"N to the O to the everlasting  _negative_ ," Hawke said firmly.

"That long, huh?" Isabela said in amusement.

"No, I really can't quite put my finger on it yet," Hawke joked as she saw Fenris extremely bewildered.

"What are you two talking about?" Fenris asked insistently.

"Quick, cover Broody's ears, he's too young for this kind of stuff," Varric said sarcastically.

"Do me a favour and clarify this before I clarify your insides out in the open," Fenris muttered aggressively.

"Asking me to do this is like _apples_  and  _oranges_ ," Varric said purposely vaguely.

"Do me a favour Fen and tell me how biggy is the thing you make tinkle with," Isabela said childishly.

"…Tinkle?" Fenris asked in even more confusion.

"Oh he's hopeless. You were right, Varric," Isabela said and sighed.

 _I'm not sure about that anymore, Rivaini,_  Varric thought.

"So… moving on?" Hawke intervened swiftly.

"I believe it's your turn to be asked or dared, name-day girl," Isabela said. "I want to do you."

"You want to  _do_ a lot of things," Fenris said a bit angrily out of nowhere.

"I decided I no longer want to  _do_  things that depress me," Isabela retorted meanly. "And now he gets it… You were just playing dumb, weren't you?"

Varric intervened. "I want to do Hawke."

"Oh,  _now_ you like me? You weren't that crazy about me a moment ago," Hawke said meanly.

"My apologies for trying to make room. I thought it would be more  _fruitful_ ," Varric said charmingly.

"Whatever. Truth," Hawke said firmly.

"Do you like  _cider_? Honest truth," Varric demanded cunningly.

"I don't know," Hawke said and frowned in confusion. "I've tasted it once or twice, but I need to try more to be sure. It's kind of too sweet and sour at the same time. I don't exactly know on which of those to focus on, so it's a bit intense. Lovely, but intense."

 _Might as well have replaced "cider" with "Fenris". Gotcha, Pantaloons_ , Varric thought.  _Also, Dear Varric, please remember this by morning. P.S. Bathe your teeth 'til January._

"Can we stop with this ridiculous game?" Fenris asked grumpily while brushing the hair away from this forehead.

"Hawke, may politely ask if we can so very courteously smoke within the premises?" Varric asked mockingly.

"I am inclined to acquiesce to you request," Hawke retorted mockingly.

"Great googly gratitude," Varric said charmingly and got out a few too many cigarillos and some he dropped on the ground.

Hawke laughed. "Just how many are we? One, two, three, four, six –"

"That's you seeing double," Isabela said in amusement.

"This 'coffee' isn't working the wonders," Hawke said grumpily.

"It will once you also smoke," Varric said firmly. "Catch."

She didn't catch it. A minute after she found it under her armchair, she got up and said in a husky voice, "Oh, I can't wait. Once we reach Antiva, I'll get me a thousand of those."

"Once you reach  _what?_ " Isabela asked in outrage.

Hawke and Varric became pale and looked at each other. "Oh, right… I've been meaning to tell you."

"The day when you leave, I suspect," Isabela scowled and crossed her arms.

"No," Hawke said and coughed. "Still making arrangements. I haven't decided who I'm going to take."

"Hawke, if you don't take me with you I'll –"

" _No need_  to make a scene," Hawke said grumpily and lit her cigarillo. "The matter was not who I  _should_ take, but rather who  _wants_ to come."

"Then it's settled," Isabela said while uncrossing her arms. "Who else is on your list?"

"The handsome dwarf, right here," Varric said and raised his hand.

"And his best good-looking and taller pal," Hawke said and blew out a tornado of smoke rings.

"Well, of course you, you're organizing it," Varric said grumpily while lighting his cigarillo.

"She means me," Fenris said nonchalantly while drinking his coffee.

Varric's smoke came out without being blown from his open hanging mouth. "Well I'll be a nug's uncle."

"He can't live without me," Hawke said sarcastically. "He admitted I'm his guardian angel."

"Bullshit," Isabela said and frowned. "You did?"

" _I_ said no such thing," Fenris said nonchalantly and kept drinking his coffee.

Hawke simply grinned to herself and poured the Antivan brandy in her coffee.

"Hawke, who would have thought," Isabela said eagerly.

"That's he's a lying bastard? Nope, not me," Hawke said sarcastically while pouring the brandy.

"No, I mean what you just did," Isabela said and smiled. "I take it you like your coffee just how you like your men? Strong and Ferelden."

"What in blazes are you talking about?" Hawke asked bewilderedly.

"A coffee mixed with liquor is called Ferelden Coffee. You didn't know?"

"I didn't even know Fereldens heard of coffee," Hawke said and chuckled.

"Well, was I right at least or do you prefer something more exotic?" Isabela asked cunningly.

"Isn't coffee itself already exotic?" Hawke asked nonchalantly.

"Don't dodge the question," Isabela said firmly while Fenris started to frown.

"What do you want me to say?" Hawke asked in annoyance. "Bah."

"How do you like your men?" Isabela asked again.

Hawke caressed her maxillary. "Let me make it clearer for you – I like my men how I like my dragons – strong, dangerous, hot-headed, with an aura of a grand mystique …" Isabela was going to say something but Hawke interrupted her and finished "And extinct."

Fenris started to tense up and almost choked on his coffee.

"So you like girls?" Isabela asked bewilderedly.

"I don't like anything," Hawke clarified in annoyance and then quickly deflected. "I really need to open up a window." She got up and went for the nearest one.

"She's bullshitting us," Isabela said quietly to Varric.

"You think?" Varric asked sarcastically. "What do you say, elf?"

Fenris raised an eyebrow in annoyance. "I  _think_ it's none of our business"

"I bet she has this secret lover," Isabela said and Fenris swallowed heavily, "Separated by the Blight, went their separate ways and now she found out where he is and  _that_ 's why we're going to Antiva."

Varric frowned. "That actually makes sense. It would certainly explain two years of solitude. Certainly explains why we're going so far north. Good thinking, Rivaini."

"What are you two whispering about?" Hawke asked in annoyance as she came back.

"Whorehouses in Antiva City," Isabela quickly saved it.

* * *

_**Sunrise…** _

An hour passed as they started talking about different idiocies, but eventually Isabela had to take Varric steadily and proceed to walk together hand in hand like two drunken singing idiots back to their home.

Fenris remained outside at the main entrance where Hawke was leaning and watching the two rogues stumbling on each other's feet. He didn't know what to say, he didn't  _remember_ what he wanted to say… he knew it had  _something_ to do with an apology, but his mind was oatmeal and as he saluted her goodbye, he stumbled on his own feet and fell.

"Maker's saggy testic –  _no, I don't want to throw up too._  Fenris!" Hawke shouted in concern and quickly dragged him up. He growled and his eyes were opening and slowly closing again, so she sighed and put his arm around her shoulder and carried him back into her house. "Alright, straight to bed with you." She widened her eyes and immediately regretted the way she said it, but he only muttered a husky "mhm" with his eyes still closed.

_So… put him to bed with a blood mage, with me or in Mother's empty bedroom? Well… she won't be coming home until tomorrow afternoon, but still… No, if he throws up or something, I'm the one who's screwed, not him. He's her precious little elven "son-in-law" hypothetical candidate. Ugh._

He was heavy, probably because he had about ten pounds of liquor in his system. She dragged him to her room and tried to put him on the bed. He frowned as she sat him down and he started coughing heavily. Hawke shook her head and chuckled. She grabbed his legs and lifted them up on the bed and pushed him down to the pillow she carefully beat beforehand.  _Ok, now what…no pads, no gauntlets, no chest plate… I think that's enough… Or maybe…NO. Pfff, armchair or table? Definitely armchair._

"Hawke," Fenris's hoarse sickly voice resounded in her ear as she tried to go to the door.

"What?" she asked sleepily and turned around.

He turned on his side and had his head face-down under his arm and faintly pointed with his other weary arm for the empty side of the bed and she chuckled. "No. You keep the whole thing. You need it more than I do."

While still with his face into the pillow, he banged the mattress remarkably faintly with his fist and she lifted her eyebrows. "Well, with that tempting offer…" she said sarcastically and came by the bed.

Fenris muttered in the slowest grumpiest voice ever, doubled by the fact that his face was buried in the pillow, "My head… it's as if a carriage full of iron ore drove over me."

She lied next to him, keeping a polite distance, "Well, who told you to drink  _all my_  brandy and mix it with cider," she said and chuckled.

A funny pause. Then he muttered through the pillow, "Me."

She smirked in amusement and shook her head, "Drunken idiot."

Whatever he said next through that pillow in the dead voice, it was either  _I'm your idiot_ or  _I'm a midget._ Neither seemed… well, maybe the last one he could have probably said.

She exhaled in relief, for her name-day was finally over and to be honest… it was the most fun she had in a very, very long time. She turned her head to gaze at Fenris again, who looked positively dead in that position. He almost looked, well… hauntingly adorable.  _Cut it, Hawke. Sleep it off. You won't remember this anyway. He won't either. Well, since we won't, it's not like… Oh shit, he's not breathing._ She turned him around and he opened his eyes and frowned colossally, turning his sleepy and now child-like green eyes to his right to look at the disturbing force.

"Sorry," she whispered. "Go back to sleep."

He growled and frowned in that drunken-weary haze of his. He seemed like such a child, it was baffling. She couldn't for the love of apples…  _apples. Cider. Kissed Fenris. Then kissed Varric… NO._

**Shit. Big flaming coffee-coloured shit.**

"Hawke," Fenris muttered with his eyes closed.  
"Mm?" she muttered back quietly.

"Promise me," he said and inhaled, "that if you remember any of this, you'll tell me. Not like I did a while back, when you were… when you were… and I was such a … how do you call it…  _Flagitium*_."

"I promise. And I'm sure you weren't a  _flagitium,_ " she chuckled.

"No. A…  _brutum fulmen*, vishante tan stultus berbex, quomod'me supportis vel quid in me vides sensus non habent …_ " He kept muttering angry quiet things in Tevinter with his head turned away to the other side, until finally Hawke leaned towards him and placed a hand over his mouth.

(*scoundrel/dirtbag, *empty threat, *I was a such a damn stupid fool, how could you even bear with me or what do you see in me, I have no clue)

"Shhh," she whispered. "Sleepy… somnus! Somnis fututus, now!" He chuckled in a hoarse voice. "What? What did I say?"

He brushed his hair away from his forehead and smiled with his eyes closed, "You said  _fucked in one's sleep._ "

"Oh my."

He turned to his side, facing her and buried half his face in the pillow. "Don't worry," he half-muttered ineloquently with his eyes closed, "I will not do that to you." She chuckled and shook her head at how funny he was like that. "In your sleep."

She stopped her chuckle and turned pale. "In my sleep," he finished flatly. Jee, what a creepy and honest way to tell her he was having wet dreams about her. She was still amazed though, that he remained so polite and knightly even in his worst state. She wondered if she should ask him questions so he would answer honestly, but then she felt guilty, especially since he had to suffer a whole night of truth or dare with the overly prodding Rogue Duo.

Better sleep it off. She closed her eyes and drifted off instantly, then the pitch-black started to spin or shake with luminous colours and she felt dizzy again.  _No, not the Fade…_

* * *

**The Fade**

Not again… As a mage, half the times she dreamt she was forced to be conscious through it. Which was pretty fun, hauntingly exciting, over the hill elating as a child only newly introduced to this concept. But as so many years passed, it was tiresome  _and_ frustrating. Because even as she was lucid, she wasn't fully in control of her body or mind. At least not for a good half of any dream. There was of course the times she was very conscious and she would walk around and whistle until something came up, but then there was the radiance and reflection of the physical world's recent emotional prints … refracting into the Fade, where she was. That meant that she could dream over and over again the same event that had occurred into the house. She would sometimes dream of her mother as a young woman, she even saw her and her father once as he climbed on her window to see her. But most of it she didn't remember, because those were other people's memories and one needed a certain amount of time, practice and discipline to keep focus and remember it. And she had no real interest in such things.

Her own memories, however, were another matter… She could easily live those memories over and over again, not exactly in the same manner, since the Fade was distorted just as emotions, impressions and memories were tempered with, but nevertheless, the thing she was dreaming now was quite clear in its central subject…

Fenris shoving her into the door, kissing her neck and teasing her to the cruelest most unrelenting corners of hell. She was aware of it being a dream, but it didn't make things any easier and she lost herself.

"Fenris I –  _ah_ ," she gasped shortly, "they come at any minute."

He growled impatiently and turned her away from the door to slam it shut. "Let them come," he said firmly and brought her lips to his in a harrowing second. She let herself encaged in his firm grip and thrust her fingers in his hair, as he walked her backwards to the bed. She sat down as he bent forward to kiss her further, placing his knee on the edge of the bed and making her lie down. Oh, the dreaded sodding gods of the tumultuous underworld, she couldn't stop it. The feeling of his strong physique overshadowing her and the way he kissed her, it was like an enrapturing whirlwind, a dance of friendly forces, for lack of a better word, for it was no competition. Every powerful kiss, every opening and closing he exerted with grace, enjoying every bit of it, making every move count. She thrust her nails in his back and held him firmly, as he moved his maddening evil moves on her neck. From where he knew that she liked being bitten, only those damned conniving undergods knew. He bit her so well, just enough not to leave a bad mark and just long enough for her to lose the wide reserve of her control and moan, at the sound of which he would grin ferociously to no end. Maddening, just maddening. Yes, that was exactly it…

Hawke caught his face and stopped him, making him look at her. "You're drunk," she said firmly.

"And the sky is blue and the grass is green," he said ironically with a low voice.

"Which means we should stop," Hawke said assertively, all the while brushing his soft white hair.

He frowned again, just like he did in reality, and said in an aggressive, almost childish manner, "I don't want to."

She sighed and lifted her back up and rested on her elbows, "You have to fight this feeling."

He growled. "This feeling? You mean the feeling I've been having for a good two years now? That my brain is going on vacation when you're around and when you're not all I can think about is you?"

"That's just lust," Hawke said defensively. "Alcohol doesn't help diminish it."

He shook his head bitterly and got off of her. "Kaffas," he cursed aggressively and sat on the edge of the bed. He turned his head behind. "You think I can't tell the difference? There is a fine line between that and what  _I_ feel," he said and turned his head forwards again, gazing at the door. "Do I want to take you here and do it over and over again? I do," he said, then turned his head behind to look at her. "But that's not the central feeling that's killing me every time I see you, Hawke."

She rose from her elbows and sat next to him. "What are you saying?"

He sighed and looked down. "I am  _saying,_ that I want you with me all the time. You could just sit here," he gestured towards her, "and speak nonsense for hours and I would be content just to listen to you," he said in a calmer tone, then smirked bitterly. "You could bark at me and call me names, insult me, spit your venom at me and I still wouldn't mind, as long as you're there."

"So you like my voice? I rather enjoy it myself," Hawke deflected in amusement.

He gave her a murderous look and took her by the hand. "I want you with me," he said firmly and searched her eyes insistently. "Do you understand?"

Hawke swallowed hard and looked into his determined green eyes. "I understand."

Fenris sighed and let her hand go, brushing the silvery hair away from his forehead. "I apologize. I did not want to force you into anything. It's just-"

"You didn't force me into anything, Fenris. I complied, remember?" she said in amusement.

"That you did," Fenris said calmly and gave her a bitter smile. "Although it is possible that you did it for different reasons than my own."

Hawke smiled warmly and shook her head. "What do you take me for? Isabela?"

Fenris didn't look at her, instead staring blankly or eyeing the door angrily. "Certainly not. But I don't know what you want."

"Then stop overthinking it," Hawke said and smiled.

"I let my reason go and act on instinct, you stop me. I calm down and speak about it, you stop me from that too," he said in amusement and turned his eyes to her with a smirk. "You're impossible."

"I don't know what was in your head when you chose me," Hawke said while shaking her head and chuckling. "You certainly have some death-wish."

"On the contrary," he said calmly. "With you, it feels like a life-wish."

"I'm not the one to grant you freedom," she said defensively. "You have to find it within yourself. Don't take me for some exciting get-away."

Fenris laughed bitterly. "I don't." He inhaled deeply and looked at her. "You don't need this kind of trouble."

"You'd be surprised," she said bitterly. "But that's not importa-."

"What's important is that I enjoy your presence," he said in his usual calm-but-angry tone, then looked at her, "more than you know," he said and contained his smile. "You didn't see that one coming, did you?"

Hawke rolled her eyes, "I'm not blind. But I'm also not … intrusive."

"I know," he said firmly. "I do highly appreciate that."

"I don't want to - … I don't know how to say this," Hawke said while struggling to find her words. She sighed and looked down. "I'm an abstinent troubled mage with a very… bad past. Let's leave it at that."

"And I'm a troubled former slave and the only memory I have to show for begins with the agony of receiving this, this filth," he said bitterly while gesturing at his arms. "And the horrible times which followed," he said and looked up. "If I'm not the one to understand, nobody can."

"You've never told me that," Hawke said and widened her eyes.

It dawned on her that ever since she decided to train her powers more thoroughly, perhaps her connection to the Fade became stronger, which meant not only that she lived the memory more effectively, but the emotional winds in the dream could have also caught on Fenris's genuine psyche and shoved it in her face clearly. In part, it could have been Fenris himself who was talking to her, although she wouldn't stick her hand in the flame about that idea.

He looked at her firmly, "I wanted to tell you. A few days ago, but then …" he sighed and pressed his eyes, "My problems are not yours."

She looked at him quietly and he pressed his lips before continuing, "Unless you want them to be. As unwise as that may sound," he said with a raised eyebrow and then looked away. "I certainly had a tough time admitting it to myself."

"I want them to be," she said quickly, then looked away, "But I don't want  _my_  problems to be yours."

Fenris smiled calmly, "That seems unfair."

"Cautious and cowardly begin with the same letter," she said subtly with a bitter smile.

He sighed and seemed like a struggling child, "As you wish."

"No, see? Stop saying that," Hawke said in annoyance. "It makes me feel like I'm your master or something. Please tell me you don't see me as a twisted reflection of that."

Fenris didn't answer. He remained lost in thought and shook his head briefly, "I did not overlook that aspect. I've been compliant for a long time before I realized I wanted out. You would be horrified if you saw the way I was back then."

"You didn't really answer my question," she said perceptively.

Fenris scowled at her wit, sighed and took her hand. He played with her small fingers as she watched him in silence. "Maybe," he said and paused, as he noticed the remnants of the sword slash which she got from grabbing the other end of his weapon recklessly. He touched the scar gently and shook his head. "Maybe if you were friendly, helpful and annoyingly nice, maybe also if you weren't a mage, I would have felt some pleasurable illusion of compliance to your cause. But most of what you did in the beginning was to bark at me, kick me to make my own decisions and you didn't prod me about my problems," he said and squeezed her hand gently. "In other words, no, I don't think I'm engaging in an unhealthy delusion of following you like I'm your slave."

"But wouldn't you feel like a slave precisely because I'm a mage, I was the leader of our group and I was mean to you?" she asked bewilderedly.

"No," he said firmly. "You were mean, but you listened to me. You took into account my point of view, welcomed it and you involved me in making decisions sometimes. Your snarky behavior was just a defense." He smirked at her. "Am I wrong?"

"We're not talking about me here," she deflected. "Continue."

He sighed and smiled, playing with her hand. "All I am saying is that you give people the freedom to choose what they enjoy." He titled his head and lifted his eyebrows as if he was laughing at himself. "And I enjoy following you."

She frowned and he corrected himself while chuckling, "As a friend. Not an employee, not a servant, nor a slave."

She sighed in relief, but started becoming lucid again. "Good, although you can't know for sure."  _You're still_ partly _just a figment of my imagination._

"Of course," he said and smirked. "What I am certain of however," he said as he scooted closer to her and put her hand on his chest, while squeezing it, "Is that I want to be here. For you, with you, without you, however it may be. I want to have the certainty that you are somewhere and continuing," he said firmly, then looked at her with a raised eyebrow, as if he thought himself a fool. "Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Hawke chuckled. "It means you care."

"I find these verbs of affection fairly vague," he said and kissed her hand slowly. "Naming a feeling is more misleading than describing it."

"Describe away and I'll define," she said in amusement. "That's what I'm here for."

"You would have an easier time defining them by my actions," he said and chuckled. "How would you define this?" He simply kissed her cheek.

"Hm," she said in amusement. "I need further proof." He kissed her other cheek knightly. "You… like a full cheek with skin."

Fenris chuckled and took a hold of her face, "Let me make it clearer for you." He slammed his lips into hers with more control than before and she could feel the rebellious courtesy with which he operated – he initiated things, stealing kisses like that, but didn't take her as if she was his thing to play with. At least not when he was a full on horny drunk. She wrapped her arms around him and responded with a powerful kiss, in-between starting to pant from the pleasure. He pressed her against him and bit her lip, this time not by accident. And that's all it took... she entwined her tongue in his and it felt like setting ice on fire, that much was clear. They felt that drive again and it occurred to her that in a way, they were far beyond driven. They opened a door with no way of return when they first kissed.

She finished with a long and fiery peck. "I conclude that you want to do this for quite a long time," she said childishly with her arms still around his neck.

"You're not far wrong," he said in amusement. He placed his chin on her shoulder and embraced her tightly. She sighed bitterly, but enjoyed every second of that firm hug.

"I was afraid of that," she said bitterly while brushing her fingers at the back of his vest and feeling his soft hair on her cheek. "Not that I needed my mother to say this, but, you're a good man, Fenris."

She heard him from the back and felt an arrogant smirk, "I know. And it's a nuisance. Just like you."

Hawke moved her head away from his shoulder and looked at him, "You signed your funeral, old man."

"I know," he said and gave her a broad smile. "What do we do now?"

"Now I wake up," Hawke said bitterly and kissed him again tenderly. "And I'll have to face you again."

Fenris's physique started to fade away like it was shattered to dust by the wind and the luminous nuances in the room began to melt turbulently, enveloping her in the painful whirlwind of the subconscious tempest full of slashes and swirling colours, characteristic to the Fade.

* * *

**Late afternoon, Hawke's Room**

"My head…" she whispered out loud without realizing. The light… OH, the fucking LIGHT. It blinded her eyes and pinned painful, exquisitely… gruesomely painful shots in her head. Never,  _never_  drink brandy again. That much was clear. Although, something else became clearer as she opened her eyes...

She was buried in Fenris's chest, with a hand wrapped around his back and a leg so impertinently and lazily climbed on top of his. As soon as she realized his head was resting and tilted on hers and his overgrown hair was suffocating her face, she couldn't for the love of this newly discovered coffee not sneeze the hell out of it.

"Benefaris," he muttered while still sleeping.  _Thanks, I guess… Oh, yes, thank you for not waking up, what am I thinking._ She blinked repeatedly and tried to think of a good way to get out. As she tried to duck her head out and get her hand away from his back, he started to growl in annoyance and ended up landing with his head on her chest and holding her tightly.

Great… Now what. She was amazed that him, an extremely vigilant elf whose ears flinched like a mabari at even the faintest sound or movement, didn't wake up. Not only did he not wake up, but he moved even closer and "suffocated" her with his grip, as if it was natural, as if they were married for ten years and slept in the same bed. She could laugh at this sight for months if she was in a better state of functioning. And at him. But now, the situation was particularly  _tight._

"Fenris," she said intentionally louder. "Yo, Fenris." No answer. Maker's balls he slept like the dead. "Look, apples," she said and pressed her eyes at how ridiculous that sounded. She would regret what she was going to say next, but his grip was too strong for her to get out, almost as if he was actually dead and in a state of rigor mortis. "Hunters."

"Where," he asked firmly and opened his eyes. "Ah…" He covered his eyes and frowned in pain from the light.

"Sorry. There was literally no other phrase that would wake you up," she said with guilt.

"You could try slapping me like a normal person," he muttered grumpily in a fiercely hoarse voice.

"I don't want a hand in my chest," she said in amusement. "Well, through," she corrected herself.

"As if I'd have the strength for that," he muttered with his arm still over his eyes.

"As if I would think that far ahead," she said grumpily and smiled.

Fenris groaned in annoyance and uncovered his eyes, then his face suddenly grew stiff and pale. He became aware of his position, his surroundings and his defenses were probably coming back. He looked to his left and his right, meeting her awkwardly smiling face. "How did I end up here?"

"Don't you remember how you pleaded and begged to take you to my bed?" she lied mischievously.

"What?" he asked flatly, masking the tension and terror in his tone.

"Yeah, you cried that you couldn't sleep alone in that mansion of yours and I took you in. We got down to naughty business, but then you fell asleep right in the middle of the act," she continued with her playful story.

"I did  _what_?" he asked and widened his eyes, rising from the bed.

She laughed childishly, "I'm kidding. You fell on the ground when you tried to leave and I carried you back. Merrill's sleeping in the other room and Mother's bedroom is off limits, so… here you are."

"I- oh…" he said and scratched his head, feeling very foolish and terrified. "I am…," he stuttered and looked like he was about to give a speech to a thousand people, "You are generous."

"Yes, I'm a hive of honey and mellow," she said sarcastically and rose up too. "How's your head?"

"It's just… not," he muttered in annoyance and looked at her with wondering eyes, as if he realized something. "Forgive me, Hawke."

"Forgive you for sleeping here or forgive you for being an impulsive horny drunk?" she asked in amusement.

His face grew even stiffer and his eyes were filled with shame and guilt, "Yes, I remember. For both."

"You kinda feel stupid now that you have nothing to compensate with right? Magic Ball of Everyone's Fortune," she said sarcastically.

Fenris rubbed his eyes and pointed at the fireplace, "Look down to your right."

Hawke frowned in confusion and looked to her right and saw an extremely furry purple rug beside the fireplace.

"You?" she asked in surprise. "I didn't even notice it."

"You said you've never dared to wear purple, let alone admit you love it," he said grumpily. "So I concluded stepping on it is more appropriate, and ironic."

She chuckled, "Good thinking. Oh…  _really_ good thinking. You gave me a shitty gift first so I'd like the real one better."

"I'm full of surprises and wonders alike," Fenris said ironically.

"Yeah you are," Hawke laughed. "Don't worry. You're forgiven."

He gave her a crooked innocent smile, "Am I?"

"With those puppy eyes, how can I say no?" she said sarcastically. He probably thanked her in his mind that she was sarcastic. "I gotta see if Merrill's up. Don't go anywhere."

"Why?" he asked in suspicion.

"I mean, don't leave my house. Coffee, breakfast, stuff like that. Mother won't let you anyway."

He widened his eyes and got up from the bed immediately, as he realized that her Mother could be home and come in any minute. She laughed at his awkwardness, "Oh, you're adorable."

"I'm not  _adorable_ ," he said grumpily. "Now, tense, foolish, horrified. Those I am."

"That's exactly what makes you adorable," she laughed and was about to open the door. He stopped her firmly. "Oh relax, she's probably not even home."

She opened the door and stepped carefully, checking the premises. There was a small table-like object with food and tea on it. "Ok, she  _might_  be home."

Fenris swallowed heavily and went back in the room, gathering his things. "What's your rush sailor?"

"This was unworthy of me," he said firmly.

"Wait," Hawke said in annoyance and stopped him by the arm. "Mother can't be home. She was supposed to go with that drunken Orlesian countess to the country side. She probably just came back from Gamlen's to change and left me a late breakfast since she knew I'd be in no state to function."

He pressed his lips. "Are you certain of this?"

"Yes, now stop fidgeting. You're giving my hangover an extreme case of paranoia I don't even need. And  _don't_ apologize again or I will fireball your ass."

Fenris chuckled, "Fair enough."

After they saw that Merrill was gone and they sat at the table  _and_  after Hawke repeatedly told him to eat whatever and how much he wanted, he kept staying silent and looking ashamed.

"You're starting to depress me, Fenris," Hawke said in amusement. "Change your face."

"I left my spare faces at home," he said sarcastically.

"Well don't forget to bring them next time," she said firmly and drank her tea.

Fenris swallowed heavily and remained quiet. He thought he would find some relief the next time he saw her and things would become clearer. But that night didn't help at all and if anything, it made things even worse and more confusing. A million questions were darting at his head, but he couldn't find the courage to ask any of them.

"Oh, by the way, you can start packing," Hawke said calmly. "We're leaving in three days."

Fenris frowned. "How long are we going to stay there? And where are we going exactly?"

"We're going from here to Starkhaven, cross the Minanter River, then go west for Ansburg and keep going until we reach Rialto and Antiva City. So let's see, it will take about two weeks to get there and maybe a week to stay in the capital. So you do the math."

"Is this simply a pleasure trip or do you have something in mind?"

"I need to find someone," she said vaguely. "An old friend, let's leave at that."

 _Kaffas_ , maybe those drunken idiots were right. Maybe she did have some old flame that she lost in the Blight and only recently found out that they were stationed in Antiva. Maybe that's why she didn't want to talk about what happened between them. Then again, why would she bring him along? Because it was dangerous and it would be useful for him too, to get out of Kirkwall for a while, of course. He starting to brood his eyes out and decided to it was time to leave before he exploded.

"I will see you in three days then," he said flatly and got up. "Thank you for everything, Hawke."

She caught up on his behavior, but didn't have the courage to make him stay or ask why they wouldn't see each other in those three days. She thought it was best for her too to have a break before being stuck in the same carriage and premises for a month. Good thing she was such a smooth one in these situations, she thought sarcastically.

"My pleasure," she said warmly. "We leave at 5 in the morning. Do you want me to come get you or –"

"I will come by your mansion beforehand and we can go from there," he interrupted her and nodded knightly.

"Alright," she said and got up from her chair. How do you say goodbye in these situations… "Have a good one!" she said and immediately wanted to hit herself.

"You too," he responded flatly and she watched him leave.

Damn.

 


	23. Not Ready To Face The Tiger II

**2 days before departure for Antiva**

**Afternoon, Hawke's Estate**

Hawke couldn't function. Her mind was mechanically going backwards and forwards through the span of recent events and she couldn't bear it. So she did what any reasonable abstinent warrior mage woman would do. She did anything else  _but._

She tried writing in her journal about some philosophical rant, but that quickly shifted her thoughts to Fenris, because he had become her dignified partner in dabbling through the absolute. She tried to train for a brief time with her sword, but that reminded her of a certain elven warrior who criticized her moves and every time she made a move she would stop suddenly because she could hear his deep but mellow voice saying 'Not like that…'. She tried reading a book she had not bought herself that was stuffed between her own in the library, called "Leather to Feather: Crossroads of Form". It was apparently about some nonsense of how a writer is inspired by other writers and give form to what others before him already shaped and some other hogwash. But it didn't work. Feathers, reading and writing was what stuck in her mind. It reminded her of Fenris. Then she tried painting, even though she swore she wouldn't paint until she got better tools from Antiva, but just as she tried to use three remaining colours in her toolset and draw a stupid tree, she started being enraged again. She only had white, black and green. It reminded her of Fenris.

She would not go out.

Lastly she tried to draw a bath and just sink in her frustration. She heated the water as much as she could so she would be in absolute pain when she entered. When that didn't work, she started singing in the bathtub, but quickly grew tired as she didn't seem to remember any song properly.

In a fit of blind rage, she felt like giving up, and then the door opened.

"Andraste's great flaming ass, who the hell are you?!" she screamed in panic as a young happy dwarf looked at her with a funny smile, seemingly unaffected by the sight of a naked woman in a bathtub and clearly in a lack of comprehension of the impropriety of his action.

"Not enchantment," the young dwarf said with a smile. And with that she recognized him right away. He was the odd, enchanter young boy of Bodhan, the merchant with a death-wish that accompanied her in the Deep Roads. He had a strange name like Boot or Shoelace or…

Sandal.

"I- ..what- .. GET OUT OF HERE!" she screamed in outrage.

Bodahn came in a rush and saw Sandal at the door. "There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you. Two minutes I look away and you're off to the Anderfels."

Hawke was getting up as the man came and he didn't seem to notice her at first. Then all hell broke loose.

"Oh my!" Bodahn shouted and quickly covered Sandal's eyes. "I'm so sorry, messere! I- Oh!" and then covered his eyes as well.

"Good," Hawke said in annoyance and rolled her eyes. "Now there are two blind lunatics standing in my way out."

Bodahn gave a nudge to Sandal and dragged him out of the bathroom, both with covered eyes still and they almost stumbled into each other and fell backwards.

She came out with a robe on and gave them a fiercely homicidal look. "State your business, Sir Dwarf."

"I- we-…" Bodahn stuttered courteously. "Your mother summoned my boy and me to handle her business and look after the estate during your future travel."

"She did wha- oh... And where is my dear sweet mother?" she asked sarcastically, since she wished her burning alive right now.

"In her room, messere. I – My honest apologies again for this outrageous discourtesy! You've seen my boy, he's a bit of a brave of wanderer, he is…Thank you saving him so long ago and I'm filled with honest joy that you've managed to find your way out of the Deep Roads, messere," Bodahn said in one harrowing breath.

"Can your boy do enchantments now?" Hawke asked cunningly.

"Y- yes, of course, anytime, anywhere. He's a miracle worker, my boy Sandal is," Bodahn said with an eager smile.

"Then I'll take that as an apology. Not free of charge of course, I will be paying you," Hawke said firmly. She tried not to burst into laughter. "You can uncover your eyes now, by the way."

_Thank you for this distraction, as crazy and outrageous as it may be._

* * *

**Afternoon, Fenris's Mansion**

Fenris gazed upon the emptiness of his mansion, where red mushrooms were starting to grow impertinently fast and to such an extent that it felt more like a sickly and deathly little garden than a home.

Home… If this was his home, it was – it was good, but it didn't –

He walked in the hallway and looked at the painting that had fallen on the ground when she came in with him one very long night, a very long time ago now. It was a tragic depiction of people sinful people bathing in a lake of fire, on the island of some very smart demon which lured them to his cage, perhaps. Above that grotesque scenery, a different world stood. One of a white sky of ever falling snow and green, fruitful fields below the mountains, little houses scattered all over the wild place and two children were jumping or playing on a hill.

This was no Tevinter painter, of course. None would dare to depict to such a graphic extent the real horror of the underworld, the actual bargain that magisters made to augment their powers. It was too much a weakness to shape this reality outright, with the blunt truth.

But even so, it was a style that drew emotion so vividly well, both kindness, happiness, freedom  _and_ the deadly sins that were down below. The encasement of lost souls, crying and screaming in their silence while they burned in the lake of fire.

You could see the painting in two ways now : either that life was an illusion, and it was all the more easy to fall into hell when you let your guard down or simply when that perfect little scenery far above is not enough for you, that you need to dabble into the unknown until you break and get eaten by the tiger… Or in another way: blood, chains and suffering, an illusion of a lake of fire that you would not get out of because it was simply the only world you knew, with the happy, beautiful one hiding right above your head, that you didn't want to reach. You wouldn't even look up and see it was there. You couldn't – because you were trapped into a cage of your own doing, keeping your head and eyes down, like you were unworthy.

Such a thought, a place of hope, a promise of redemption great enough perhaps to welcome even him, who counted murders among his sins as numerous as any blood mage he so viciously despised.

Oh, indeed, this was very sweet, the picture of life beforehand or hereafter, depending how you looked upon it. The horrors of the natural world laid off upon a wise, but absent god, and the demons' folly rendered with such keen intelligence… because they prayed on the living, their hopes and their doubts, their harrowing desires and endless need of gratification.

He remembered Hawke's brave statement about him – that he was an innocent and one of the things that made him so was that he was absent of the need for illusions. But wasn't he living illusions right now? One of them was somehow, of course, his endless need to keep his head low and bathe in his own misery, while waiting… and getting frustrated of the delay of the hunters finding him. At the same time, he found relief in that delay, as well as perhaps needing this illusion that Hawke gave him – that he could be free, that he could speak and do, whatever he wanted to. It was part of the reason he hadn't left the city, even if it would have been so easy for him to do it. Now… and for a long time, he had to admit, it wasn't so easy… to just leave and be done with this place, in the same way he had done it so effortlessly before.

He was struggling with the awful fear in himself that he must, at the climax of his tale, disappoint himself and her, alike. They were dwelling into something they did not understand and the train of consequences that would follow… inevitable. And he had a strong presentiment that they weren't to be the good kind. Two things were awfully simple : One was that he saw the negative in everything. Two, - … two was that she made him feel whole, hopeful, liberated of his negativity… he struggled with the word, he hated those words…Happy.

Would that if it were true, would that all the poems and paintings in the world were but a mirror of such hopeful splendour?

It saddened him; it might have broken him down, the thought that one day, this fantasy life would be over once again. Although to be reasonable, she didn't expect anything from him. She was simple in her intents, either you do or you don't, either you're good or you're bad. If you weren't half as bad then maybe you will not be half as dead.  _You have few preconceptions, even with me,_  he said to her.  _In fact you astound me that you admit to such extraordinary simplicity._

Her voice resounded in his head,  _You and I are alike in this, we did not grow expecting much from others and the burden of conscience was private, terrible though it might be._

That it was… terrible. And she didn't deny that even with her bravery and impulsivity, even with the extraordinary reserve of energy that she had in finding the good in everything, she was still broken and haunted by her past and her actions. Yet that didn't slow her so much in doing things, as he did.

 _But I could ask you and you could ask me. It shouldn't be this hard,_ he remembered her say. Such simple clarity.  _We can find out together,_ she said. He pressed his eyes shut and walked away from the painting.

A single incident from his tale - one which to him had been a passing encounter, though he desired it to be a recurring one - loomed large for him beyond all the rest and locked itself in his thoughts. He couldn't get it out of his little head. He could not banish it for the love of h-… from his mind. That in a moment of complete honesty, he took his heart in his teeth and did exactly what he wanted – he kissed her, he had her there and she responded with the same amount of willingness and warmth he had never felt or seen before in two people, as if he was gazing from afar, his soul watched as they did it and knew from an instant how effortlessly simple and fitting it was.

Ah, such fancy, this madness, such fancy. He had not expected to be so hurt by anything in his tale. He had not expected this to make a burning in his chest, a tightness in his throat from which no words could escape. He couldn't ask her anything of her after that. Not even a lousy 'Could you pass me the pepper?' as he ate with her the morning after he name-day. He ate everything without so much as a condiment and kept his mouth shut.

But as he was drunk and he saw her go into her room, it felt so simple and found himself rising from his armchair and taking her into his arms with impatience. He couldn't believe his own earnestness, his own wild desperation as he went for her. He just wanted her and her alone, to be, to continue, to live. And if he could allow himself a bit of happiness and she welcomed his greedy desire to storm into her life and ruin it, in that moment, he accepted with no brooding thoughts.

But these thoughts were foolish and vain. His whole tale was foolish and vain, and yet he turned around and gazed at the painting again with different eyes and he wanted that hope and that freedom to choose.

Then he forced himself to look up at the crack in the ceiling, where the light was flooding the dark floor of the mansion.

His head swam. There was a war inside of him.

* * *

**1 day before departure for Antiva**

**Afternoon, The Hanged Man**

The last two days were so sodding strange, Varric couldn't help even for the shame of it, not to begin  _brooding_. Neither Hawke, nor Fenris came to the Hanged Man as their daily routine taught them – come for tea in the morning or at noon, go and cause trouble somewhere, then come back at sunset for drinks and Wicked Grace. But nobody came even to check if he was still alive.

"Andraste's granny-panties, Varric, what's happened to you?" Isabela's voice disturbed his train of thought as she came in his room.

"What?" he simply asked, amazed at himself that he had no witty one-liner to give her.

"Either you're having a stroke or you're brooding," Isabela said with a half-sad face as she sat down. "Please tell me it's a stroke."

"Sorry to disappoint, Rivaini, but it appears I am indeed following in our angsty Tevinter friend's brooding footsteps," Varric said grumpily, playing with his dwarven pocket watch.

"Well, you're wasting  _time_ ," Isabela said in annoyance. "What's on your mind anyway? Thinking of forgiving Bartrand?"

"Andraste's dimpled buttcheks, no! I'll put on a dress and dip myself in hot lava before I forgive that nug humping bastard."

"Then what is it?"

"Have you noticed something weird lately?"

Isabela rolled her eyes, "You'll have to be more specific. Everything with us is always so weird it's normal."

"Last few days, not necessarily weird, but  _different_ , mind you."

"The Hanged Man seems pretty empty now. There's no Hawke to set ruthless fire to the place or Broody to ice it up nicely and make us feel like we're in South Ferelden during the winter."

"Exactly," Varric said grumpily, intertwining his fingers.

"You think he didn't actually leave the place that morning and they locked themselves in that mansion and going at it day and night without a break?" Isabela asked in amusement. "I wouldn't go that far, even if they both have the… appropriate reserves for it as warriors."

"What did we each bet last time? I keep forgetting. We switched teams so much over the last year," Varric said with tired eyes.

"I  _think_ I bet that they were in the dry humping zone and you bet that they're dwelling in boring, sexless platonic camaraderie."

Varric frowned and pressed his eyes, "Right." He sighed. "I'm probably losing."

Isabela grinned. "Why are you so beaten up about it? Seems you're so concerned about Hawke's happiness at one second, then the next you're placing bets on them not doing anything. You're sending mixed signals,… kind of like how they're doing with each other."

"I don't know what I want," Varric said angrily like a child.

Isabela chuckled. "That's probably what they said."

"You're not helping , Rivaini," Varric said grumpily.

"Look. You clearly love Hawke. Let her do… whatever or whomever she wants to, let…," Isabela looked up and smiled. "Let her go!"

"I  _have_ to know," Varric said compulsively.

"Of course… you always have to know," Isabela said in an ironic voice. "Well, instead of moping here like a little bitch, how about we do something about it?"

"Such as?" Varric asked.

Isabela grinned. "For starters, go and see what they're doing. Seems reasonable enough a plan, no?"

Varric shook his head tiredly.

"What?" Isabela asked as she got up. "You're starting to depress me, Varric."

"I know. I'm shitting my pants at how I'm behaving. I kinda look like a little bitch, don't I?"

"Would it make you happier if we place a bet again?" Isabela asked in amusement.

"Sure."

"I bet that we'll find them, at either of their houses, having mindblowing hate-sex since last night because Hawke's too intense and persistent and Broody's too stubborn to just let go and," she chuckled, "release."

"Fine," Varric said grumpily. "I bet they're both in their separate homes doing nothing. Seems exactly the case every time."

"You're on, old man."

* * *

**Late afternoon, Hawke's Estate**

"So… he can do it anytime anywhere?" Isabela asked awkwardly.

"Yes, he's a genius, a miracle worker. I'm so excited, I'm thinking of trying to make him enchant a chair just to see what happens!" Hawke said eagerly with a big smile on her face as she played with Sandal's runes.

"Chair enchantment!" Sandal shouted eagerly.

"Right after you're done with putting that speed rune to my gauntlets, yes?"

Sandal turned sad and scratched his head. "Oh… no gauntlet… enchanted sword with speed rune."

"Ah, it's fine. The more attack speed I have the less I need gauntlets, right?" Hawke said with an excited smile.

"Right, well… anything else happening these days?" Varric asked awkwardly.

"Nope," Hawke said childishly. "Just a lot of dwarves coming to my house. Your friend from the Carta came by a few hours ago to tell me everything's up and ready for tomorrow."

"Oh, good," Varric said flatly. "Joy of joys, well… we're gonna go pack then. See you at 5."

"Later perpetrator," Hawke said childishly and waved at them without even looking, being much too immersed in Sandal's work.

* * *

**Outside Hawke's Estate**

"You look disappointed," Isabela said as she gave Varric the money.

"I'm angry … and disappointed," Varric said with amazement at himself.

"Well, I guess there's no point in going to see Broody now."

"I have to go take care of some business, Rivaini," Varric said. "Meet up later for Wicked Grace?

"If you don't come back by sunset, I'm going to be extremely busy with my head between Nora's legs."

"Right. Have at that. Too much info, even for me."

* * *

**Fenris's Mansion**

"Hello, Ciderboy," Varric said charmingly with a perfect mask of nonchalance.

"You wish something of me?" Fenris asked flatly with an unimpressed look.

"Just wondering what you've been doing in this empty house all by yourself. Am I disturbing something?" Varric said sweetly.

"Isn't it obvious? You're disturbing my dance routine," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Oh, don't stop on account of me. It's like I'm not even here," Varric said with a grin, leaning against the wall.

"So, just like usual," Fenris said grumpily and went back to his sword training.

Varric watched him slash and duck at shadows, as if the whole moves in his repertoire were totally changed. He exerted every move with grace, mind you, but in combat he had an aura of complete calmness which served him very well. At the moment however, there was supressed, calm rage with which he swung his sword. He suddenly felt uneasy, looking at him.

"So… angry at shadows much?" Varric asked awkwardly.

"Shadows take any face I want them to have," Fenris said flatly and slashed the air again with raging grace. "It is much easier to focus with precision this way."

"You know you really ought to take that offer elf," Varric said with concern.

Fenris ignored him and whirlwound with a scarry growl, then said in a nonchalant voice,"I don't need employment."

Varric frowned, "But it wouldn't kill you to make some friends in this town. Soon it's gonna be three years in this place and you're practically a ghost."

Fenris slashed the air with precision and ducked down as if a shadow was going at his throat. As he rose up he said in a flat, determined tone, "I prefer it that way."

Varric scratched his head and took a few seconds to let it sink in. He was right, it was better this way. The least he could do though, is come by his mansion once in a while and remind him there were some people who gave a damn about him. For all his flaws and problems, Fenris clung to a sense of honour Varric tried to as well, and it was more than enough for him. He almost got the shivers through his back, thinking how terrible it must be to be lost in the world, with nobody to love or damn you. And it was worse if you didn't have the courage to take a breath, look around and see that there were in fact people who welcomed him in their busy lives. Even if it was just him and Hawke, and maybe Aveline who really gave a damn about him, it was the same for each one of them. They didn't have really good friends that cared besides those one or two people. Their other companions were driven and set on their own selfish goals and made no space for them in their lives, not  _really._ They conversed and worked together, Isabela, Anders, Merrill, but they weren't really involved in each other's lives. Perhaps keeping low was the best way to see who your real friends were.

"Healthy attitude there," Varric said patiently. "Forget I said anything."

"Already forgotten," Fenris said flatly without looking at him and keeping to his battle with the shadows.

Varric felt disappointed. He didn't know why, but he was. Grateful now that he had a revelation about who his friends were and that the elf was indeed, a true friend, but disappointed of everything else. He wasn't experienced in emotional exchanges of thoughts, serious business or anything of the sort. He was a man, after all. The most he could do is make a joke, and there were  _so_ many jokes about cider and apples going through his head, which didn't seem appropriate or funny anymore, now that he had that train of realizations. But he couldn't help but ask at least one simple question, "Have you seen Hawke these days?"

"No," Fenris said flatly without looking at him. "She wasn't with you?"

"Nope," Varric said sweetly and leaned forward away from the wall, since his back was getting stiff. "She's disappeared off the face of the earth."

Fenris flinched and stopped his sword at the sound of that sentence. Varric noticed and quickly corrected himself, "I mean she hasn't come to the Hanged Man. She didn't flee the city or anything, she's at her home."

"Then why the great concern?" Fenris asked nonchalantly, resuming his sword training.

"Just seemed weird that the same time she disappears you do, too," Varric said cunningly. "Thought something happened."

"Why would I have something to do with it?" Fenris asked nonchalantly. "There is nothing to us."

"I'm not implying there is, apart from maybe another barking war of 9:33 Dragon gone wrong perhaps," Varric said and chuckled. "Just found it curious, that's all. A funny coincidence."

"That's exactly what it is," Fenris muttered grumpily, whirldwinding again. "Fortunate coincidence."

"Well, just checking if you're alive and well. I need you strong and focused in about well, 12 hours."

"I'm alive," Fenris said flatly, swinging his sword forward as if he severed a being in half. "I will see you in twelve hours."

"Alright," Varric said and smiled. "I get your drift. I'll leave you to your ghost fight."

As he walked out of his room, Varric looked behind and watched the last glimpses of the whitehaired elf still exerting his moves with angry, silent grace. Much better than a dance routine, indeed, just not as cheerful. He started to feel a tightness in his throat, as if he suddenly caught some empathetic disease and he felt the elf's mysterious pain or realized just how shitty his life was before and unfortunately now, too, since he had no clue how to function in a free world, but still waiting to be hunted. Bah, he needed a drink. Or twenty.

* * *

**4:30 in the morning, Hawke's Estate**

"MOTHER WHERE DID YOU PUT MY CHESTPLATE?" Hawke screamed impatiently, running from room to room.

"Which one?" Leandra shouted from the other room.

"WHICH ONE, as if I have A THOUSAND. The one with the Griffon on it," Hawke shouted from afar, almost tumbling over Mojo, who was extremely disoriented and following his caretaker from room to room.

"It's near the fireplace, where you last put it, love," Leandra shouted back.

"You're absolutely POSITIVE that it's not in the laundry this time?" Hawke screamed.

"Remarkably positive, love!" Leandra said as she walked out of her room and stumbled into a crazed Hawke. "Did you pack enough underwear?"

Hawke stopped her rush. "I don't know."

Leandra smiled. "I got you new colourful ones from the market yesterday."

Hawke frowned at her. "Having rainbows in my pants is usually my first concern when ripping the insides out of a band of thugs on the green, lovely grass and under the blue, blue sky."

"I'll just put them in your pack, go get your stupid chestplate," Leandra said while shaking her head.

"Way ahead of you," Hawke said impatiently. She grabbed the underwear from her hands and hopped on the balustrade of the stairs, sliding down with ease.

As she put them in her pack and looked at the fireplace to search for the chestplate, she glanced for a second at the hallway by the main entrance and saw a whiteheaded figure staying on the bench. It didn't sink in at first as she resumed her rushed pace, but then her bell finally lit and she looked behind again.

"Fenris, you're here already," Hawke said in a bit of awkwardness, stumbling over the chestplate, which landed on her foot. "AH, motherfffff-"

Fenris got up and remained in the door way, "I said I would come early to escort you."

"Fenris! Just the man I've been looking for," Leandra said as she finished going down the stairs. "I have something for you."

"You do?" Hawke asked in confusion, and dropped her chestplate on her foot again. "AH FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER OF A THOUSAND FUCKS. Sorry Mother."

Leandra ignored her and came to Fenris, who looked positively austere and frightened.

"You look pale, what happened to you? Did you get a chance to eat?" Leandra asked in concern.

Fenris looked in different directions as he said, "No, I'm quite alright though, thank you."

Leandra sighed, "You are so frustrating sometimes. How can you not eat? Come in the kitchen right now."

"Don't listen to her," Hawke said quickly. "I can't get into my battle pants because of her."

"Well who told you to eat all the pudding?" Leandra asked and crossed her arms. "I simply put it there."

"You're evil and conniving, Mother. And you make the pudding so hauntingly delicious, who can say no to that? Away with you, wraith of the underworld!" Hawke said sarcastically.

Leandra raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. "Anyway… come with me, Fenris."

Hawke rolled her eyes and kept packing, as Fenris followed Leandra to the kitchen. What did she have to give him anyway?

When they came back, she heard Fenris chuckle with Leandra over something. She pressed her lips in annoyance and ignored them.

"Are you done, love?" Leandra asked warmly.

"Quite finished, yes," Hawke said grumpily and turned around to look at them. "I guess this is goodbye." She walked over to her mother to give her a short hug.

"For now," Leandra pressed. "Don't make me worry again for nothing."

"You've got Sandal to keep you distracted once he figures out he can reach the chandelier."

"Maker's breath, don't even," Leandra said as she finished hugging her daughter. She saw Fenris watching curiously, then knightly looked away. "There's one for you, too, don't worry."

She came by him and Fenris swallowed heavily, as Leandra wrapped her arms around him and encaged him in a motherly hug. Hawke looked in amusement at how terrified he looked, not knowing quite what to do with his hands. He finally got the idea that he should place them on Leandra's back. "Don't get reckless out there, alright?"

"I will not," Fenris said knightly.

"I think she means don't let  _me_ get reckless," Hawke said nonchalantly as she put her pack on.

"That too," Leandra said warmly. "Maker knows Stubborn should have been your middle name."

Fenris chuckled. "I will make sure she's safe."

"Stubborn would have sounded lovely," Hawke said nonchalantly. "Much, much lovelier than," she cleared her throat and said in a mocking tone, "Bianca."

"Take care you two," Leandra said. "Be safe and for Maker's sake  _eat_  on the road."

"If he leaves me anything," Hawke said in amusement. "Sure, I'll try and really not get into my pants anymore."

"It's called meat," Leandra said in amusement. "You are what you eat."

"Goodbye, Mother. Take care and make sure Sandal doesn't set the house on fire. Bye bye Sandal, Bodhan."

"Goodbye and good luck on your travels, Serah Hawke and Serah Fenris," Bodhan said and took a bow. "Say goodbye to the lady and the gentleman, Sandal."

"Bye bye," Sandal said sweetly.

As they got to the first hallway, Fenris gave a short snort and seemed as if he was trying not to say something.

"What are you choking up about, Braveheart?" Hawke asked sarcastically.

"Fatty," Fenris said meanly.

Hawke raised an eyebrow. "I have a nice ass, look," She turned and mocked him. "Can you say the same about yourself?"

Fenris tried to ignore his impulse to either grab it or kick it, and chuckled, "It is quite nice. But you're still a big fatty."

"Piss off," Hawke said in annoyance.

* * *

**4:45 in the morning, Kirkwall City Gates**

Once they arrived and saw nobody and nothing waiting for them, Hawke let go of her pack, dropped her sword and sat on a rock. Fenris cursed in his mind that they either arrived early or the others were being late and looked in different directions, keeping his aura of nonchalance.

"Dwarven clocks… great precision," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Or dwarves themselves," Fenris said grumpily. "Did he ever arrive on time for something?"

"He didn't need to," she said while thinking about it. "We always went to him."

"Maybe we should change that," he said as he sat on a different rock at a reasonable, yet not grand distance from her.

"You know the Hero of Ferelden was in a great rush," she started calmly, "She managed to move her ass through all of Ferelden, going back and forth from one place to another, fighting other people's battles so they'd join her cause, preparing for the Landsmeet, fighting darkspawn on the way, she even let herself arrested for saving Loghain's daughter from being imprisoned. She managed to convince the nobles to fight for her cause, put her fellow Grey Warden on the throne and she still had the stamina and time to fight the Archdemon AND have the courtesy of not dying to it. All in like what? A year or so? Blights last decades and she did it in a year," she said with great pride on her face. "And here we are," she gestured, "going for a lousy trip to Antiva and it feels like we won't get there for years with our lousy companions."

"You really have an obsession with her," Fenris said perceptively. "It's either that or you have a questionable thing for elves," he said with a grin, but quickly regretted it.

Hawke smirked and caressed her maxillary. "I have a thing for people who get things done. Who do the right thing, who are brave and who don't mope around and wait for others to their dirty work in blissful ignorance."

Fenris rolled his eyes, "You could just be so yourself, instead of worshipping others who do," he said grumpily and gestured. "It certainly wouldn't hurt to try."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hawke said with a scowl. She didn't pick up on his subtly, but simply took it as an insult. "Somebody's being particularly mean today."

Fenris pressed his lips and looked away. "Nothing, don't mind me. I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"So you're done calling me fat too?" Hawke deflected gracefully.

"Not a chance," Fenris said with a smirk.

"I thought as much," she said grumpily. "What did Mother give you?"

Fenris grinned and got up from the rock. "That's none of your business."

Hawke lifted her eyebrows. "Excuse me?" she scowled, "Somehow you get to gang up on me with all the people I love."

"Don't be so paranoid," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"I'm being realistic," Hawke pressed. "Or should I remind you what you lovely crazy people thought would be  _funny_ for my name-day."

"I did not think it would be funny," he retorted flatly.

"Well you certainly didn't oppose the ones who did," she said and chuckled.

Fenris laughed softly. "I did. I told them you would be enraged or at least fight back in an instant and kill them all by accident. But Varric pressed." He crossed his arms and looked away. "He said it was," he lifted his hand up from his crossed arms, "the  _ultimate punishment_."

"Well, he got  _his_  ultimate punishment," Hawke said grumpily. "Oh the look on his face. I thought he was going to pee himself."

Fenris shook his head while still looking away, "You- you- … bah," he said and squeezed his crossed arms and kept shaking his head with a grumpy look.

"What? I what?" Hawke said while raised an eyebrow and leaning forward on the rock. "Come on, say it. I'm a what?"

He uncrossed his arms and looked at her angrily. "You scared the hell out of me."

Hawke laughed in delight, "Have you  _seen_ an abomination? They are u-gly. I'd rather be taken by the Templars."

"That does sound… reassuring," Fenris said flatly and looked away in hopes Varric and Isabela would come already. "If appearances is what you put such stock in."

"Of course," Hawke said ironically. "Look at me, I'm the ultimate diva. I would never mix blue with brown or yellow with green." She grabbed her throat mockingly. "You'll have to tie and gag me first."

Fenris felt his anger rising up from her jokes, even if they weren't directed at him. He wanted an answer for his frustration and she kept deflecting. But he couldn't assault her now, even if it was the best and probably only opportunity before taking off.

He pressed his lips in annoyance and changed the subject. "So tell me, how come you decided not to take the abomination with us? You seemed to press on the matter that he should come."

"I decided he wasn't fit for the cause," Hawke said calmly. "So I changed my mind."

"Oh? You changed your mind?" Fenris asked with a raised eyebrow and crossed his arms. "Does this one work any better?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Did you have a tough time thinking up that line? Must have been a long and lonely journey, that one thought."

Fenris grinned. "That's funny, Ms. Jesterpants. Did you also hear that one joke they don't tell to idiots?"

"No?" Hawke said in confusion.

Fenris smiled "Exactly."

"Good morning, ladies," Isabela said mockingly as she came with Varric from some bush behind.

Hawke looked behind in terror. "Please tell me this isn't what this looks like."

"If by that you mean it doesn't look like we just took a piss in the forest back to back, then no, this isn't what it looks like," Varric said sarcastically.

"Maker preserve us," Hawke said mockingly and shook her head.

"I heard bitching all the way from my bed, Hawke," Isabela said charmingly. "Did your mensies sync or something?"

"No, he was just telling me how much he loved me," Hawke said sarcastically. "Continue," she gestured to Fenris with an arrogant smirk.

"Right, yes," he said and coughed. "I can't put my feelings for you into words. I'd better show you."

Hawke widened her eyes, but he quickly gestured to the sky. "Count the stars, Hawke."

"It's kind of morning already, dumbass."

Fenris smirked. "Indeed."

"If I throw a stick, will you go away?" Hawke retorted meanly.

"OKAY, slow down, I'm getting dizzy and we're not even in the carriage yet," Varric intervened.

"Oh, this will be fun," Isabela laughed.

"Now again, what did my mother give you?" she repeated insistently.

Fenris chuckled. "That is classified information."

"You know I won't let this go, right?" she grinned, "I  _will_  find out somehow."

"I know." He gave her an evil grin and crossed his arms. "And I'm going to enjoy every bit of it."

" _So_ fun," Varric said sarcastically while shaking his head.

"Dory!" Hawke shouted all of a sudden. "He-he-hey, I thought, however ironically, that you'd turn out to be the one riding us."

_That elf._

"That's what I do on vacation. When I'm not riding fat greasy nobles, I get to ride beautiful women who can kill me in my sleep," the black-haired handsome elf said with a grin as he approached the group. "And stop calling me Dory."

"I'll stop if you tell me you're not the only one who's going to drive this carriage," Hawke said impatiently.

"Of course not," Dorian said happily. "Amadeo's on his way."

"Who?" Varric asked in confusion.

"Amadeo?" the elf said. "He's my Antivan … co-pilot, let's say."

"I know that guy," Isabela said with lifted eyebrows. "He used to work with Martin. Seriously cut-throat elf, that one."

" _Another_  elf?" Fenris asked grumpily.

"Someone's being an ironic racist today," Dorian retorted in annoyance. "Don't worry, love, I'll pretend you're short and skinny because you're suffering from a horrible disease like the Black Death or the plague or … well, that certainly fits your murderous look, uh - Hawke, how have you been?"

"Don't mind him, Dory," Hawke said in amusement. "He's just not the frolicking type."

"If he's not the type to murder me in my sleep because I looked at him the wrong way, I'm good," the elf said with a grin.

Varric chuckled. "Don't worry, elf, if you piss him off his method of killing you is much less gory and much more… fistful."

Dorian shook his head. "I'm a whore and I still don't want to know what that means."

"Somebody order a long and boring ride to my mother country?" a very deep and cut-throat Antivan voice came from behind. Presumably Amadeo, a red-headed long-haired elf who was surprisingly hunky as Fenris, but his face was very pale and sculpture-like. His eyes were long and sharp, his nose was small and his lips were thin and rosy. Across his face, he had a long cut, which seemed an old scar. Yes, cut-throat was a very fitting term. He looked more nonchalant and dangerous than Fenris, or at least in a very different way. The kind that leaves you to rot in camp one day or sells you to the underworld raiders.

"Amadeo, I presume," Hawke said firmly and nodded.

"Correct, but call me Armand. I no longer hold my Antivan heritage dear to me," the elf said flatly and shook her hand firmly.

"So you decided one day to rinse yourself in flower and stop looking so Antivan, right?" Hawke said sarcastically.

"I do not joke, Serah," Armand said flatly.

"I don't either," Hawke said sarcastically. "Forgive me, sir, I'm a seriously misunderstood creature."

Armand narrowed his eyes. "You are Hawke. Yes, I see it now."

"You do?" Hawke asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hair of blood, face of a child and a short mouth. I look forward to see you swing that big knife of yours in battle. There are some wild tales going on about you in every corner of Kirkwall."

Hawke frowned at Varric and he cleared his throat. "Most of them aren't true, Serah."

If he knew she was a mage, he was dead.

"So she does not have two sets of genitals in her pants?" Armand asked bluntly in that cut-throat voice of his.

"Oh, that one is true," Fenris intervened flatly. "But you may not want to bring it up, she feels very self-conscious about it."

"So that explains why you don't have an ass, Fenris," Hawke scowled at him. "I destroyed it with my monster cock."

Isabela burst into laughter along with Varric and the whore elf, but the two grumpy twins didn't seem to find it so funny.

" _So_ fun," Isabela said in amusement. "I can't wait to get on the road."

"Those two are going to be best friends by the end of the day," Varric said in amusement about Fenris and the new flat-toned elf.

Everyone laughed, except for the grumpy twins again, but Hawke caught Fenris's wondering eye on her and he could have sworn she gave him a warm look, the one he only saw after he kissed her. This was going to be a long trip…


	24. The Bitch And The Little Bitch

What a sunny afternoon… The Vimmark Mountains were just the best. The draught, the heat, the endless shrubbery and rocky scenery. Even if Antiva was hotter than the Free Marches, at least it rained almost every day. Even in her years in Kirkwall, Hawke wasn't used to such heat and her face would turn into a carrot under too much exposure to the sun. Fortunately, the carriage was covered.

So there they sat, Armand and Dorian in the driver's seat, Armand staying silent and grumpy, minding his own business and Dorian but being prodded every minute by Isabela, talking about the Blooming Rose's finest clientele, Varric and Fenris playing some weird guessing game and Hawke being bored to bits and fanning herself with a book.

"So how come you're going to Antiva, Dory?" Hawke shouted from inside the cart.

"Classified information, my dear firebird," the elf shouted back.

Seems like all the elves present were keeping classified information away from her today.

"Have you ever been to Antiva before?" the cut-throat elf surprisingly said his first words in hours.

"No," Hawke shouted back. "It's all virgin territory for me."

"You're not a virgin, though, are you, Hawke?" Dorian shouted back and Hawke reddened furiously, since everybody was now looking at her.

"That's classified information, dollface," Hawke retorted, using his own weapon against him.

"It's only a matter of time before we find out," Isabela said with a grin. "The truth is beautiful and it likes to come out."

"That works for universal truths, not for my own private business," Hawke said defensively.

"Seems with both sets of genitals you don't really have any private business," the Antivan cut-throat elf said.

"Well wouldn't you like to know," Hawke said in annoyance.

"I don't," the Antivan retorted flatly.

"Then we're on the same page," Hawke said angrily. "What are you two whispering about?" she asked Varric and Fenris with a homicidal look.

"Classified information," Varric said sweetly. "Seems like a reasonable and recurring theme today."

"You don't say," Hawke answered grumpily.

"So how come you're going to Antiva if you said you gave up your heritage?" Isabela prodded Armand.

"Let me guess, it's classified information," Hawke said grumpily.

"This no secret," the Antivan said sharply. "I have a friend who needs help. I'm going to help him."

"That's remarkably vague," Hawke said calmly.

"Is there a point to know more?" the Antivan asked grumpily.

"I should know more about you, yes," Hawke pressed. "After all we're going to be stuck with each other for a while."

"Yes and it was a remarkable coincidence. I needed to go to Antiva, you were in need of a ride," Armand said flatly. "I am not your servant and this is not a joy ride. There is no point to it."

"You're hasty with your preconceptions, sir," Hawke said in annoyance. "But I'm not going to prod you if you say there's no purpose in it."

"Well I find a purpose in it," Isabela said. "Speak, Amadeo."

"My name is Armand, not Amadeo," the Antivan said sharply. "Nature gave you ears for a reason. Use them wisely before opening your mouth."

"I'm more effective with my mouth than my ears, sue me," Isabela said angrily. "Now speak."

"And yet again, I refuse. What now?" the Antivan said acerbically.

"I'll just have to get it out of you through other methods," Isabela said cunningly. "Like later in my tent."

"Do not bother, woman," the elf said nonchalantly. "You are nothing if not abhorrent."

"Ouch," Varric said awkwardly.

"Straight to the point," Isabela grinned. "I like that in a man."

"Prodding and cocky," Armand said sardonically. "I do not like that in a woman."

"You should be more like me, Izzy," Hawke said with a smile. "Keep to your business and read something interesting. Like this," she gave her a book called "War and Peace" by a Fereldan scholar.

"That's more boring than our Antivan friend here," Isabela sighed in desperation.

"There's nothing like the feeling of staying by the fireplace with a copy of War and Peace," Hawke said cockily. "You know a big fat book like that will feed a fire for two hours."

Everyone chuckled at her joke and she caught Fenris's warm smile for a second before he completely cut it out. She sighed and looked away, thinking just how difficult this trip would be if she had to sit just a few inches away from him for two weeks.

* * *

**Nighttime, First Camp**

Somewhere east of Wildervale near a great forrest, in a giant and ghostly meadow, they stopped and set camp. It seemed as though Hawke and Armand were the leaders of this group, discussing the guarding hours and the cooking and assigning the posts. Armand went with Dorian, though this dynamic duo seemed extremely strange, for the Antivan was an austere and mean piece of work and the whore was particularly charming, talkative and cocksure. Perhaps it was just out of familiarity. Varric was paired with Fenris and that left Hawke and Isabela to stay watch when their turn came.

Sitting by the fire, most of them were enjoying the stake Armand made from scratch. Hawke examined him closely - he seemed broken by time, hardened, despite his beautiful child-like figure. He had tattoos all over his body and he kept a tail from the upper half of his hair. He had two earrings in one lobe and none in the other. For some reason, she wasn't scared of him very much, just like she wasn't scared of Fenris when they first met. She felt his potential for danger, but that was about it.

Apart from having – at least apparently – no sense of humor and keeping much too quiet and austere, the lad was very good at what he was doing and he didn't seem to act on a lot of prejudice even if he wasn't surrounded by the best examples of the human race. Isabela certainly wasn't a worthy ambassador.

From left to right, there was Hawke, Isabela, Varric, Fenris, Armand and then Dorian enclosing the circle next to her. Things were particularly tense and she tried not to look at Fenris as much as he tried to do the same.

"I don't get it though," Isabela said to Dorian. "Is Serendipity a guy who tries to be a girl, or just a girl with an incredibly deep voice?"

"Why don't you find out for yourself? You've certainly haunted the Rose more than any ghost possibly could."

"Some things even I don't have the balls to try," Isabela answered with a sigh.

"How incredibly uncharacteristic of you," Fenris said with an intended sarcastic tone.

"Like you're any better, watching H-"

"There's a spider in my jacket!" Varric shouted, obviously causing a scene to interrupt Isabela's next sentence. "Gosh that blighted nug licker's fast."

"If it reaches your chest hair, the poor bastard's lost in a purgatory of no return," Hawke said in amusement.

"Purgatories are usually less chatty," Armand muttered sharply.

"Well someone's gotta step up and do the talking in order to compensate for your one-sentence-per-hour routine," Varric retorted charmingly. "And I thought Broody was the quiet one."

"Who is Broody?" Armand asked nonchalantly.

"This lovely bowl of honey next to me," Varric said sarcastically.

"Seems more like a deaf box of screaming to me," Armand said perceptively, but seeming particularly unimpressed.

"I'm not an elf expert, sorry," Varric said in annoyance.

"Oh, any resemblance between Fenris and the elven race is purely coincidental," Hawke intervened in amusement.

"As is the case with most elves," Armand retorted flatly through his half-closed eyelids.

"Crack a smile Armand, this subject is getting depressing. I'm an elf so I get a say in this," Dorian said sweetly. The brunette blue-eyed elf seemed to them very child-like and innocent. If it weren't for some of his perverse remarks, nobody would suspect that he worked in a brothel.

"As you wish," Armand said nonchalantly, poking the fire.

Hawke frowned at the sight. It seemed like this elf wouldn't listen to requests, much less take orders from anyone. His quickness in granting Dory's wish was incredibly strange and she didn't remember him mentioning having an Antivan friend outside the Rose, but she decided to let it go for now.

"Speaking of which, I think we should go through the Green Dales instead of going west along the shore. It's much less mountainous and draugthy," Hawke proposed eagerly.

"I disagree," Fenris intervened. "Dalish inhabited lands are very dangerous, as rainy and flat as they might be."

"What are they gonna do? Kill three of their own on the road? Do Isabela and I look like slavers or something?" Hawke asked with a frown.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Fenris said angry-but-calmly.

"Isn't that a terribly empty feeling – you know, the one in your skull?" Hawke retorted meanly.

"Fine, be that way," Fenris said in a supressed tone. "If ignorance is bliss, you must be the happiest person alive, Hawke."

"Ignorant?" Hawke asked in outrage. "I've travelled through such lands  _alone_ enough to know what I'm talking about."

"And I longer than you," Fenris retorted angrily.

"I'm sorry, is this a competition?" Hawke asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, but if it were, you would be losing," Fenris said with a smirk.

"Well, I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong," Hawke said firmly.

"We're going through The Weyrs; more mountainous, but less inhabited," Armand intervened commandingly.

"Now there's someone with reason," Fenris said and looked at her with a smirk. "You should listen to him. You might learn a thing or two about the real world."

"He's reasonable, you're just being cocky," Hawke retaliated with a scowl.

"Our 'mensies' may not be syncing, but it's becoming clearer and clearer that someone is on it right now," Fenris said in annoyance.

"Seriously? You're blaming the period for this? What happened to clown m-… monster, troll, reckless, crazy, completely deranged and such?"

"Finding another reason just adds to the charm," Fenris said arrogantly.

Hawke frowned. "Is your ass jealous of the load of crap that's just come out of your mouth? Oh wait, you don't have an ass. You just are one."

"And so it begins… I just can't get-" Isabela said and sighed.

"No, no," Fenris interrupted. "Let her speak her mind. She will be ultimately speechless."

"Wooh, I'm so impressed," Hawke said sarcastically. "You act like arrogance is a virtue."

"I've learned from the best," Fenris retorted nonchalantly.

"Maybe you should learn to change your face too. It's particularly revolting," Hawke said angrily.

Fenris smiled. "I couldn't do that to you, Hawke. You would feel left out."

"At least I know how to move the muscles of my face," Hawke said while narrowing her eyes.

"Don't be sad, don't be blue, the Old God Dumat was ugly too," Fenris said mockingly.

"Oh shock me some more with those poetics. That's what a girl likes to hear," Hawke said sarcastically and crossed her arms.

"How about we shock each other with a moment of silence for the fallen?" Varric intervened sarcastically.

"I strongly approve," Armand said grumpily.

"All in favour?" Varric asked and raised his hand. Everybody raised their hands except for the two angry lovebirds. "Alright, let's join hands and close our eyes… No? Just me? Alright, let's just stay silent for a minute then."

* * *

**Nighttime, After everyone went to sleep**

"Hawke, I have to say this since nobody has the balls to," Isabela said as they kept watch. "You're being a bitch."

"Tell me something I don't know," Hawke said unperturbed.

"That you're being bitchy to Feny for the sole purpose of deflecting from something else," Isabela pressed bluntly.

Hawke remained unimpressed with mockingly lifted eyebrows. "Shock me some more with your incredible perception."

Isabela sighed. "Truth or dare."

"You think me that stupid?" Hawke asked in annoyance.

"Humor me, we've got a good half of this night to do nothing," Isabela pressed.

Hawke sighed in annoyance. "Fine, dare."

"I dare you to answer honestly-"

"That's cheating."

Isabela laughed. "I always cheat. Which makes it allowable."

"I'm not going to hear the end of it, am I?" Hawke asked perceptively. "Fine, ask your question."

Isabela grinned. "Have you ever been in love?"

"You're killing me," Hawke said and looked down. "Could you ask a stupider question?"

"I'm asking the question. You'll get your turn," Isabela said firmly. "Now answer honestly."

"Well since it's truth or dare, how can I not," Hawke said sarcastically.

"I've got all night," Isabela said nonchalantly.

Hawke sighed and looked up, deep in thought for a while. Finally she looked away while placing her elbows on her lifted knees. "Once," she said and kept eyeing the trees. "It didn't end well."

"See, now we're getting somewhere," Isabela said with an approving smile. "Is that the reason that you're being such a bitch now?"

"How the what… I don't see the connection here," Hawke said while shaking her head.

"You're having that particular, mind you, annoying feeling again and you want to push it back where it belongs and somehow make it disappear?"

Hawke sighed and looked away, grasping her hand with the other. "It's not the same."

"Well then how is it?" Isabela asked in confusion.

"It's-," Hawke growled. "It's just not the same, alright?" Hawke said in annoyance and kept looking in different directions.

"It's like talking to a man." Isabela sighed and shook her head. "Look, I know you're a mage and a warrior and you lost a lot of people, but you've grown up in a warm family and you're also a woman – and that means you have an easier time to understand whatever it is that you're feeling."

"You didn't grow up in a loving home, yet you seem to be more in touch with your mushy gushy feelings," Hawke said mockingly.

Isabela laughed. "My time for having mushy gushy feelings has long passed."

"Well, mine is too," Hawke said and looked down.

Isabela sighed. "I might not be a fan of romance, but, regardless – don't you think you owe it to him  _and_ to yourself, to resolve this issue? It won't go away, I promise. It's the ultimate bitch of life."

"Right – slavery, torture, discrimination, imprisonment, starvation and being in love is the ultimate bitch of life," Hawke said grumpily.

"Cruelty and denial of and to anything, either to outside people and things or to yourself – that's the bitch of life. Add love to the equation – it really won't go away."

"And what would you have me do?" Hawke asked angrily. "March in his tent and tell him what? That I want him around? That I'm afraid he's going to leave? That anytime in-between those mushy gushy feelings, if he caught on fire and I had a bucket of water, I'd drink it?"

Isabela smiled warmly. "Do whatever makes you happy, regardless of what that is. And stop being a bitch."

Hawke looked down and pressed her eyes shut. "I just- " she growled, "I can't go through this right now. Not tonight at least. I need to clear my head."

"Fine, we'll change the subject," Isabela said patiently. "I just wanted to help. I know I don't seem like such a good friend but, -"

"You're alright," Hawke interrupted her future potentially cheesy remark. "Don't sweat it too much."

"Fine," Isabela said with a smirk. "I get your drift. We're not very different, you and I. Well, I wouldn't go  _that_ far, but you get what I mean."

"I really don't," Hawke said with a crooked smile.

* * *

**Nighttime, Second Camp**

Somehow they were fortunate. Only four days had passed and they were almost reaching Ansburg. They set camp just as after crossed the great Minanter River. And such a grand river it was; its waters were storming and roaring forwards in the distance like a dignified tornado of hostility. Much like the atmosphere in their little group.

Varric, Isabela and Dorian started playing Wicked Grace by the "cool kids" fire pit, while the cut-throat Antivan elf and Fenris were trying not to burn the rabbits they caught at the "grumpy kids" fire pit.

"No, you don't want to do that," Armand said in his sharp Antivan accent. "Give me the hare." He skinned the rabbit with his bare hands, instead of how Fenris tried with a knife. "If you don't skin it with your hands fur will still remain and they might have diseases." He gestured towards the other dead rabbit. "Now you try."

Fenris did as he asked and after he skinned the little beast, he turned his head away to watch Hawke pace in a rush towards the forrest. As he did so he cut himself with the knife he recklessly let hanging on his leg. "Vishatta avada khar."

"Res ipsa loquitur," Armand said with a smirk. (*The thing speaks for itself)

Fenris frowned and widened his eyes, "You speak Tevene?"

"Sic est," Armand said bitterly. (*So it is) "You probably wonder how."

"The thing speaks for itself," Fenris said flatly. "There is no need to explain that you were a slave."

"Yes, like always attracts like," Armand said sharply, while working on the rabbits. "You have that capital accent about you, do you not?"

"Sadly, yes," Fenris said calmly. "And you have the Anderfelian-infused accent of Vol Dorma, am I wrong?"

"Not far wrong," Armand said without looking at him, seeming very focused and nonchalant. His bare arms were sculptured with muscles and ink tattoos. "But I stayed in many places. My tongue has become a raging oatmeal of accents."

"You escaped just to wonder the Imperium?" Fenris asked in confusion with a disapproving frown.

"Sadly, no," Armand said nonchalantly, poking the fire. "I was simply sold from one master to another."

"May I ask why?" Fenris asked patiently.

"You may not," Armand retorted flatly. "Unless I can invoke a lex talionis of sorts." (*law of the talion, eye for an eye)

Fenris didn't want to talk about  _his_ past in the Imperium, but his curiosity was peeking incredibly high. This was the first time he met an escaped slave who was clearly a warrior and no simple, ordinary slave.

"Very well," Fenris said knightly. "I served under a –"

"No, not that," Armand said and shook his palm in disgust. "I don't give a spitting copper for your past. What would that accomplish?" Armand finally looked at him. "Exchanging sob stories to fill the time. I don't think you're that eager to share."

"I'm not," Fenris said while frowning. "But you invoked the law of the talion."

Armand didn't look at him anymore. It was interesting to see such a dark and sharp elf minding his business and talking about such an uncomfortable subject without so much as a look at his interlocutor. Fenris wondered if he appeared like that to the others, as if he was looking through a mirror.

"Yes, but that means I ask you something and then you can prod me of my life," the Antivan retorted with ease.

"Proceed then," Fenris nodded calmly.

"The thing speaks for itself, as I said," Armand pressed while keeping his eyes on the fire. "You want the redheaded human."

Fenris frowned to no end. "I feel like there should be a question in there, yet I can't seem to find it."

Armand smirked only shortly without looking at him. "Have you done something about it then?" he asked like a true nonchalant general.

"That is arguable," Fenris replied while raising an eyebrow.

"That is arguable," Armand repeated almost mockingly. "Did you or didn't you? It's as simple as the moon and the stars."

"I don't see how this is your concern," Fenris said defensively, being confused to no end that such a cut-throat elf would even care about such things and from all the question he could ask him, he chose to prod him of women problems.

His Antivan accent stung like spears, "It's not your concern why this is my concern. Humor me."

Fenris rolled his eyes and sighed, then looked into the fire. He pressed his eyes at how ridiculous the words sounded in his head, and now even more ridiculous as he let them out, "We kissed and never talked about it."

For the first time ever, Armand laughed. "Bad."

"You don't say," Fenris said sarcastically while shaking his head.

"You think you did something wrong?" Armand asked perceptively.

"Not exactly," Fenris replied. "Regardless, I don't know what to do at the moment."

Armand looked at him shortly. "That depends. Do you want to bed her or is it more than that?"

Fenris swallowed heavily. This was the manliest, most private and cut-throat person he met in a long time and suddenly he was being inquired by this man about matters of the heart. It was simply, utterly ridiculous. But no one was around to hear him and he took the chance and decided to curse at himself later.

Fenris placed an elbow on his lifted knee, "It's more than that," he said nonchalantly.

Again, the elf's Antivan and Tevinter-infused deep accent stung him. "And you decided to sit and mope like a little bitch."

"I'm sorry, are you some kind of strange hopeless romantic?" Fenris asked defensively. "I see no point in this."

"I do," the Antivan retorted. "I learned a thing or two when I got free. Like, not be a little bitch."

"You're dwelling in dangerous and ultimately pointless territory," Fenris deflected, pertaining to matters of the heart. What did slaves have to win from wasting their time with love.

Armand sighed and seemed even more intimidating now. His face was very child-like and sharp, apart from his giant scar across it, but his deep voice and his way of speaking, his way of looking at things, gave him an aura of wisdom and fierce maturity Fenris didn't see in himself, even if others did. "Little bitches are difficult. Maybe I should give you a kick by using my tale as a starter. I was born in Antiva and was sold to the Crows. After I had a few disagreements, let's say, with them, I was sold to the Imperium. Little did I know however, that I started to be sold from one master to another, as a spy and undercover assassin. I escaped with little help, but anyway, somehow I worked both for the Crows and for every other master that made use of my services. I worked for all these enemies. But I was a slave. Nothing more."

Fenris widened his eyes in amazement. This man's life must have been even worse than his, if one overlooked the horrific magic ritual he had to suffer.

"Close that mouth before the flies go in," Armand said sharply. "You don't strike me as having been a trophy slave."

"In a way I was," Fenris said bitterly. "But it did not help."

"Nothing does, not even your master having affection for you," Armand replied without looking at him. "It is a bitch of life and it never goes away if you don't let it."

Fenris didn't answer. He was much too confused and baffled, to say the least.

Armand sighed. "My point is – I've been through enough in my years to know this is no life."

"What do you mean?" Fenris pressed.

"Being a slave with all the potential to escape  _and_ be a former slave with no clue how to function in a free world. You will cling to the life you once had, as horrible as it might have been, because it is familiar. But it is poison."

Fenris remained silent and listened to him, for he wasn't finished, "I think I was worse than you. But hasty judgements are criminal, I should not presume. Though the result is much the same – you squander and lose precious time trying to convince yourself that there is no life for you. And then it's too late."

"And that's what you're recommending? Throw myself in some fantasy life with romance, pudding and rainbows?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

Armand laughed again, surprisingly hoarsely, "Must it be so difficult? We are not meant to go through this alone. Loneliness is exactly what will kill us faster than it does ordinary men."

Fenris shook his head, "I'm having a hard time understanding your view."

"You think too much, do you not?" Armand said sharply. "How about you give that little brain a pause – and do something that you enjoy. Like her."

"It's not that simple," Fenris retorted grumpily.

"Isn't it?" Armand said as he took the rabbits off the fire. "I think it is that simple. Unless you want it to be difficult, in which case – have at it, go on a limb and slit your own throat."

Fenris didn't answer. Armand smirked, "Don't listen to me. What do I know? I'm just a former slave. Freedom must be a terrible burden, no? Well, what do I know?"

Baffling. Revolting. He couldn't even –

Armand turned his head to him with sharp and piercing eyes. "It won't kill you, happiness. Thinking too much will. Get in the way and eventually kill you. That I promise."

Fenris pressed his lips and frowned. "And what would you have me do?"

"Go to her?" Armand said sardonically. "Do whatever you feel like doing to her?"

"She didn't talk about it. No matter how ambiguous things are, it is quite clear that she wants to be left alone on this matter."

Armand laughed. "Who is the man? Her or you? Women don't chase."

"She is no ordinary woman," Fenris said while shaking his head bitterly.

"I don't care if she has two sets of genitals or she is simply just a true warrior at heart, Little Bitch. Who initiated it, you or her?"

Fenris swallowed heavily. "I did."

"Then you have to go to her," Armand said commandingly, pointing with his knife at the forest. "Go."

Fenris frowned. "Now?"

"Now or never, little bitch," Armand said nonchalantly while cutting off the rabbits.

Fenris sighed and got up, but the Antivan's deep voice stopped his pace. "She is broken." He turned around to look the strange elf. "She needs more freedom than you do. Remember that."

He frowned. "What are you saying?"

"Acta non verba," Armand said grumpily. "Go." (*Deeds, not words)

* * *

**Nighttime, Inside the Forrest**

Bushes, shrubbery and more bushes. Bah. He was almost positive that he was lost. At one point it got so horrifyingly quiet and empty that even he felt uneasy and in danger.

Suddenly it started raining slowly through the high trees. Then heavily. This was no anomaly.

He kept tumbling through the bushes and walking forward, looking in different directions for the one red ponytail he used to mock with graceful arrogance. He stumbled upon a piece of a fallen branch and shrubbery and he fell right into his face on the moist grass. The rain kept pouring on him as he looked like a grumpy corpse that would never have the strength to get up.

But eventually he became angry and got up, following the path where the rain became heavier and stormier and finally, he found her strolling nonchalantly in a circle, whistling and not giving a damn that her rain made a tree fall on top of him just a few minutes ago.

"I knew somehow it would be you who almost got me killed," Fenris said angrily.

She didn't turn around to look at him. "Nobody told you to follow me, you know." She looked up and let the drops fall on her already soaking wet hair and face. He watched her with a furious scowl. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Apology not accepted," Fenris said angrily. "What are you even doing?"

Hawke chuckled. "Isn't it obvious? I'm making it rain?" She could feel him staying behind her with a disapproving headshake. "No? Too hard a concept to grasp?"

"I'm perfectly able to grasp the obvious at hand," Fenris said and crossed his arms. "What's a mystery is why you would do it here and now- bah." He shoved his arm at the air. "Of course I know. Because it's a secluded, dark place where  _almost_ nothing would come to harm and  _almost_ no one would come looking for you."

"I get your point," Hawke said calmly with her back still turned. "You're alive. You found me. You can go back now."

In that cold –yet refreshing – pouring rain, Fenris frowned, the water dripping from his hair and face, and said in a fast, mocking tone, "No."

"I'm asking you to go," Hawke said calmly.

Fenris started pointing even if her back was turned to him, "I promised your Mother that I woul-"

"Oh, don't put this on your sense of honour and on my Mother," Hawke interrupted him in a sharp tone. "We both know why you're here."

"Do we now?" Fenris asked mockingly. "Illuminate me," he stretched his arms. "I'm lost in wet and utter darkness at the moment."

Hawke chuckled with her back still turned and a light beam came out of her stretched hand, "Better?"

"Don't mock me," Fenris said angrily.

"I'm not," Hawke contradicted him softly, "Just mirroring your own deflections – mind you, in a more graceful way."

"So you do mean to mock me," Fenris pressed and crossed his arms.

"As far as I remember, what I meant was for you to leave," Hawke said in amusement.

"And I refuse, yet again," Fenris said in furious tone. "What now?"

"And I insist, yet again," Hawke retorted. "I can do this all night."

"So can I," Fenris persisted. "Just watch me."

"I'd rather not," Hawke said in amusement. "Much too busy concentrating here."

"You're deflecting, yet again," Fenris said perceptively.

Hawke chuckled. "So?"

Fenris threw his arms in the air. "Bah, you're impossible."

Hawke chuckled again. "I think that's a reasonable enough deal breaker, no?" She looked up again and closed her eyes to feel the rain. "So you can leave."

Fenris didn't answer, instead he watched her with incredible fury, seeming to implode at any second as the soft rain poured ever so nonchalantly across his face.

Hawke lifted her eyebrows in waiting for a response, but when she caught on his intentional silence she continued, "Or you can just stand there and loo-

A brute force turned her around, a brute force called Fenris, who eyed her with the most enraged look in history as he held her firmly by the arms, the spikes of his gauntlets almost ripping her sleeves. Hawke remained unaffected and mirrored the moves of his wondering eyes, catching them in her unyielding determination to remain a statue in silent protest.

This impossible woman, this frustrating good for nothing forsaken nightmare of a –

 _She_ caught him by the back of his neck in a second and slammed her lips into his, at which point – ignoring his deep surprise – enfolded her quickly in his arms and pressed her against him with all his strength, just a few attempts away from thoroughly crushing her. He brushed his gauntlets across her back from the havoc of his unhinged balance. She pressed passionately and he pressed just the same, this enrapturing pair of strong counterforces making them move in circles. He even forgot it was raining, but only realized it as she decisively caught his face in her hands and stopped them from moving. The water kept pouring and pouring tumultuously, which he felt on her soaking wet hair that was dripping rain on his cheek. Actually, the rain was starting to become very harsh now, as if it was increasing in intensity along with them. It felt maddeningly good for him to have his face caught in her hands and her lips, such diabolical fancy they were. So this was Hawke when she initiated things…The wild flame with which she pressed them onto his lips, demanding more of them with such fierce drive – was she the one who was drunk now? – and making him simply far beyond driven.

As lovely as the scene was for him, the far beyond driven part of the equation viciously possessed him. He was led to pull away from her lips and shove her into the crooked tree behind him, under a huge and very leafy branch which slowed the rain from pouring so heavily on them. He growled impatiently and smashed his lips into hers again, biting at them and forcing her mouth open. The crooked tree made it so that she was in a bit of a leaning backwards position, which led her to raise her knees and encage his hips. After he faintly leaned over her, he felt the cold rain like spears on his back as she brutally snapped the back of his vest open and thrust her nails into the safe, marking-free spots she already became to know without so much as a glance. He growled ferociously and breathed heavily in her mouth, at which point she pulled her wicked tongue away and started biting at his neck like wildfire. He couldn't, he couldn't for the love of – he thrust his gauntlet in the 'nice ass' she kept mocking and taunting him with, at which she interrupted her devil's work on his neck and pressed him tighter against her to gasp for air.

The tree suddenly bent backwards a few inches with a strong shake, but it didn't seem to be an interesting or alarm event for her. She resumed her flaming kiss to which he responded passionately without question. He couldn't control himself – he squeezed firmly where he was grabbing and run his gauntlet on her thighs and all the way to her knees, moving them in such a way that she was forced to enfold him with her legs. She caught his face in her hands again and brought him back to her lips with fierce command, forcing his mouth open and pushing her diabolical tongue in to meet his. With uncontrollable desire, he woke up ripping her shirt at the back with his other hand and brushing the spikes against her skin, to which she didn't seem to react at all negatively. She welcomed his barbaric actions and kissed him further ruthlessly.

As maddening as that was – and keenly noticing the rain becoming heavier and stormier with each passing second – something else enraptured him to such an extent that he couldn't stop giving out a hoarse and deep moan. She was moving her hips with a faint but decisive motion which pressed against his pants so viciously bad he felt the fiery mechanical need to push himself into her over and over again, which he did only once, but strong enough for her to stop her brutal kiss and gasp for air again.

And then the tree fell for good. Along with a few giant branches that he only now realized caught on fire beforehand. Fortunately for them, the branches formed a tent on them instead of outright killing them. They got up from the mess with pale faces, both their hearts beating like wild dogs in their chest. She breathed heavily and looked in different directions and he noticed the rain stopped when the tree collapsed. The flames also died in an instant.

They looked at each other in silence as they breathed heavily in shock, then Hawke pressed her eyes shut with a painful scowl. She stormed out of the place and disappeared into the neverending woods, without much courtesy for him, who was already positively lost in the forest as it is.

* * *

**Back to Camp**

Everyone was in their tents, except for Armand who was staying watch and Dorian who was somewhere father from the firepit and reading the big fat book that Hawke brought with her.

As he approached furiously, Armand looked at him with a sharp and unperturbed look. "Well?"

Fenris sat down by the fire in front of him and sighed bitterly, "We did it again without so much as a word."

Armand scared him with a sudden laugh, "Bad. Baaad."

"I told you it wasn't simple," Fenris said angrily. "Illa bei umo avada khar."

"Fac fortia et patere," Armand interrupted Fenris's curses.

"Do brave deeds and endure?" Fenris asked angrily. "This is not some honourable and noble cause a warrior fights, this is plain and ridiculous … well, ridiculousness," he muttered ineloquently.

Armand laughed again fiercely, "Factum fieri infectum non potest. It is impossible for a deed to be undone." He lifted his chip up and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "You just have to stop being such a little bitch, little bitch."

"I wasn't the one who stormed off," Fenris growled angrily.

"You were the one who didn't catch her when she did," Armand retaliated sharply. "That's still little bitch in my book."

"And what would you have me do?" Fenris asked in frustration.

Armand looked away and gazed at the reading elf in the distance. "You have to press harder. I'm feeling for you, little bitch. I'll show you."

Fenris raised an eyebrow and looked in the direction Armand was looking, "I hope you mean it in the conversational way."

"Of course," Armand said in a sharp accent. "But not tonight, as much as I feel you want to keep watch with me and know all my secrets."

"Why shouldn't I?" Fenris asked grumpily.

"Because Dorian is my guard partner," Armand said flatly. "Go have your beautify sleep, little bitch. We'll discuss this tomorrow."

"I'm starting to grow tired of this idiotic pet name," Fenris said indignantly.

"It is not idiotic when it's the truth," Armand retorted with a decisive smirk. "Now go," he gestured with his pocket knife. "Come on, off you go."

* * *

**Half an hour later**

Fenris would not even think of it, as he sat in his tent. That impossible woman who didn't even have the courtesy to wait for him and find their way out of that place. She could have just stayed silent in her stupid defensiveness, instead of storming off like a – what Armand said. Bah.

Among the tumult in his intensely cursing thoughts, Fenris' ear flinched at a sharp, dinstinct sound of Armand laughing very differently than his scary, hoarse one. Who would he have to laugh at when he wasn't here? He stuck his eye between the curtains of his tent and once again,  _will wonders never cease._

He saw the emotionless, scary, cut-throat Armand staying by the fire with a hand over the other elf's shoulder and the other grasping his face as they shared a very warm kiss. So that's why he seemed so eager to prod him of matters of the heart and tried to help him. The Antivan's painful journey through the tempest of being a former slave had ended and he was in fact, accepting all the liberties and joys that came with his freedom – in the elf's throat. It was horrifying to see that rock-hard brutal elf sharing such a warm and… clearly not a first kiss with his fellow elf. No, it was obvious that this was old news. But still, baffling and terrifying, to see him be so … gentle and careful in his grip around his fragile lover. The two stopped and Armand brushed Dorian's black hair gently and brought it under his chin while gazing vigilantly in all directions for danger. Armand's tale was complete. Or at least, in a way of looking at it. He had to appreciate his blunt intent to help him in completing his own tale.

But no… this was too much. He would never see himself as being so free, looking so content. No, this was too much to process for one night. He wished there was a giant branch that could fall on him now and make him unconscious, for he couldn't sleep.  _Vishatta. Vishatta avada khar, nunc occide me_  (*kill me now).


	25. So Far, So Good... So Desperate To Deny

_This woman's mind is strange, in a way grotesque, with amazing and startling powers._

**Hawke, The Fade**

She had been having a dream about a long lost figure from her past – a young human lad with an incredibly cocky smirk, astonishingly keen blue eyes and hair as black as raven and ebony, a giant lovely steel sword on his back. It was strange, but she couldn't remember his voice – he was talking or singing in her dream, but it was a silent box of screaming. She couldn't hear him.

For a second, the man turned and saw her, just for a second. He looked at her as if he had recognized her, a small contained smile to his lips and then quickly turned his head away again to resume his stupendously deaf speech with awe.

She didn't only admire him for being a warrior, no. This time it became clearer, in her reverie, that she envied him for being absent of magical powers. She envied him because she could never ever be like him – just a human and just a warrior. Maybe she even envied him for being a man, but that was unnecessary to the tale. She conferred a metaphorical form to her experience as a child and a young woman – the feeling of inadequacy. Both the warrior reverie and the expression "to bump chests with reality" were parts of an unconscious context which only highlighted her own feelings of inadequacy. The ones that came from the simple fact that she couldn't have been born normal and from the lack of anything else thereof that could have helped her win her father's love and approval or her own, for that matter.

She was lying to herself, though. Somewhere deep down, she liked being different; she used her flaws as useful weapons and defences – she thrived because of those flaws, her inadequacies and impenetrable complexes. Like being brutal and sharp whilst wanting to help – to mask her weakness, that she was no less kind and patient than a saint. Or damning people, giving them a hard time to read her, pushing, oh – all the pushing away. Would it not for all the defences of the world, would it not for all the stratagems she used – such a wonderful way of foreseeing every move and expecting the inevitable, all the while getting frustrated by its delay.

Or being overly physical and independent, keeping an aura of assurance and nonchalance, so she wouldn't have to remind herself, so she wouldn't alarm her friends that she could snap her fingers and cause a hundred people to die in terrible burning agony only seconds later.

Such terrible fancy, being at the mercy of your own moral abhorrence. Your decisions very much depending on the state of mind you were in – did you trust yourself to do the right thing? Did you trust that you wouldn't go mad? Switch from terrible kindness to excessive cruelty in one faint second?

Then she realized it was Carver. He had once been here. And the deafness was either her unconscious defences or this was a collective powerful memory of other Grey Wardens who simply didn't pay attention or gave a damn about his ranting.

* * *

**Fenris, The Fade**

Fenris took a seat on the remains of a cut tree, Armand standing next to him with crossed arms and an unyieldingly content figure. They watched Hawke in silence, as she stood in the distance alone with her book, reading with great pleasure – immersed, like always, in whatever she put a hand on.

"Ah, yes, it's vital that I go," Fenris said aloud, but couldn't hear his words properly on account of the thunder and the tripping rain. Then he realized with great distress, that this was all her, yet again.

"I can only assume you won't go to her," Armand said flatly. His Antivan and Vol Dorman accent was sharp and precise, as always happened when he was unperturbed and controlled. Fenris enjoyed the richness it gave to his ever so characteristically short sentences. He thought that Tevinters were rather wise to savor accents. They taught them things about their own tongue.

Hers was rather loud and harsh, deeply Ferelden and containing the ravishingly captivating mixture of half- city elf accent and half- human noble.

He rather loved her- no, he meant, he rather loved her lean graceful movements, and the way in which she responded wholeheartedly to things, to him and his questions, or sometimes not at all. She had been gracious to him since the first moment they met, sharing this, her friends, her food, her experience, her knowledge especially – she gave it wholeheartedly.

"She is a strange woman, indeed. I can see why you fancy her so," Armand said finally.

"Oh?" Fenris replied flatly without looking up at the elf.

"Mind you, I do not think you put much value in appearances, like this undeniably innocent yet badass beauty she has about her figure. But for herself in general – I think you fancy her honesty and dedication, even in the midst of her self-doubt. I think you like that she is a better version of you. One you would like to be yourself, were you not a slave."

His remark amazed him. He forgot how completely in touch with his and other's emotional world this elf was, although being the very strongest of them all, and that he could read minds. He had assumed also that the elf had been watching him of late in his utter silence, keeping his distance, making use of that time to size him up and gather a more comprehensive portrait – whatever that was.

"You must tell me everything you know," Fenris demanded truthfully. His face flushed for an instant, in the cruel waiting of the Antivan's predictable short response, much like his own.

"Armand, please let me know everything," Fenris pressed, due to his silence.

"Oh, yes, I mean to. But let me have a few moments more. Something is going on, you see, and I don't know if it's her general wickedness."

"Wickedness?" he asked in utter innocence.

"I don't mean it so seriously. You see, she's such a strong woman so strange in her ways. Let me tell you everything, yes."

But before he began to look at him and listen, he took stock of her in the distance once more, and made himself note that no one among them, not even this arguably fascinating former slave standing beside him nor the others, no one of them, was anything like her.

In the years they had known each other, they'd witnessed wonders together. They had seen so many strange cases of humanity vs. cruelty, harmless and controlled magic vs. blood magic. They were thoroughly humbled by these visitations, which had almost made a mockery of them, because they were both on a quest for answers which probably did not exist. Each to their own.

At one point, a very long time ago, his attitude had been one of profound sadness, among the paranoia. Thinking that for all her drive and dedication, she could easily come to outwit the world's finest minds and she could destroy the vast majority of this world's men, if she wanted to. In some kind of mage paradise - though she never pressed on mages rebelling, more was this his thinking ahead and paranoia – she  _could_ create and enforce peace. It was nonsense – a concept drenched in violence and blood.

But after he got to know her better and started feeling a sense of security and trust in her, he found it difficult to attempt to reason with her on some topics. He thought he would have to take care with his words not to insulter her. But she showed him he needn't have worried. She could barely take offense from him.

During their older convocations, they had few and short discussions about the essence of resorting to blood magic and she kept explaining to him that he was right in his insistencies that if you poke a man enough times and threaten his life or worse, the life of his beloved ones, he could resort to blood magic. She admitted to the fact that she wasn't perfect – that there was a possibility that even she could come to such a tragic event, if some absurd circumstances forced her into it. She didn't and couldn't state that she would never, ever – that she was certain – go through with such a thing.

"I don't treasure my weaknesses," she'd explained to him. "The blood conveys power, I don't question that. Only a fool would. But I know from what I've learned in my past years that the ability to die is key. If I do resort to blood magic by some absurd stretch of the imagination – I'll become too strong for a simple act of suicide thereafter. And I cannot allow that, if I think about it. No, I think that there is a good possibility that I'd say – let me be the human one among you. Let me acquire my strength slowly, as others mages did before me, from time and from my stamina, my resistances. I wouldn't want to become what so many had become through these blood rituals – I would not be that strong and that distant from an easy demise."

Fenris had been amazed at Hawke's obvious displeasure in talking about such things. Nothing about Hawke was simple precisely because everything was. Apart from that, she seemed to be so ancient even if she looked so young and innocent, child-like with those big hazel eyes that screamed 'Where are we? What are we doing? How should I know where we're going? We do a lot of walking, don't we?'.

So ancient as to be utterly divorced from preconceptions and platitudes, or case-driven philosophies. She wanted to know and to understand, before making such statements. But she was honest about it all. About her weaknesses and her strong suits. At first, he didn't seem to be impressed by her speech, but nothing was farther from the truth. He couldn't ask more of her than that. He deeply regretted being hostile to her in the beginning for being a mage.

Who was he to judge such a creature like Hawke? Time after time she proved just how utterly different she was from any magister he had known. She was not of the same species.

Fenris himself had felt a great respect for Hawke's fierce disinclination to use magic at all, of any kinds. She was considerably stronger than other humans and maybe even stronger than him, well able to rule the battlefield and could outmanoeuvre the most clever opponent with ease. Though she was still bound by the laws of "gravity" to a far greater extent than other mages, intentionally.

He shuddered a bit, reminding himself of this creature's deliberate limitations, and of the wisdom she seemed to possess.

That he had seen her, that he'd met her, that he'd heard her voice welcome him into her tumultuous life without much judgement on her part directed at him – all that was reason for thanks.

"This woman is very powerful," Armand finally remarked.

Fenris ignored his remark, "She's been playing a few tricks on me since that one night, and I'm not sure why or how. To be fair, I was drunk the second time. The third, she did it to me. I'm quite taken aback."

"It has you exhausted, hm?" he said considerately. "Are you sure you want to pursue this?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Mark my words. She will be mine," Fenris said firmly.

* * *

At the crack of dawn, Fenris was deeply disturbed by a burst of light upsetting his peaceful and belated sleep, his tent was being lifted up and disassembled.

"Wake up, sleepy head," Hawke's faint mockingly sweet voice clawed his ears.

He frowned and tried to get up, resting on his elbow and muttering in a sleepy voice, "I'm getting old."

"You're getting lazy," Hawke retorted without looking at him. "Come on, I can't wait to sleep. You can't imagine what it's like to be stuck with Isabela for half a night."

"Poor you," he said mockingly and got up.

"Maybe I should change patrols and put you with her, so you'd see for yourself," Hawke said with a very determined tone.

"I'd rather drink lava," Fenris said flatly.

Hawke gave him an approving smirk and carried everything to the carriage. He lifted up a couple of things too and followed her, to which Isabela suddenly said, "Is that a pickle in your pocket or are you just happy to see us?"

Fenris turned his head to her with a masked nonchalant look, "For you? Not even force magic can raise it."

Hawke turned her head and widened her eyes in horror at Fenris's uncharacteristically blunt and sexual remark, all the while Isabela ignored his insult and kept staring at his pants. His brief and sudden courage was indeed brief, for he coughed awkwardly and walked away.

Hawke watched him with an amused grin as she leaned with her arm on the carriage, "Somebody got buuurned."

"Yeah, enjoy his three seconds of glory," Isabela said in annoyance. "Big fucking deal."

" _Was_ it big? I didn't get to catch a look," Hawke said in amusement.

"I couldn't tell," Isabela said grumpily. "At least he was truthful."

"Who would have thought," Hawke said cockily, "A certain head didn't turn for Isabela. And by certain, I don't mean Fenris, but a particular  _head._ "

"Of course, he's basically into guys. Like you," Isabela retorted defensively.

Hawke leaned cockily against the carriage and looked at Isabela with a grin that said 'I'm so enjoying this and there's nothing you can use as a comeback to turn the table.'

"Black hair woman, lift some things and make yourself useful," Armand said grumpily nearby.

Isabela turned around and rolled her eyes, "Your wish is my command."

"Don't jest," Armand said sharply. "With that attitude you can wake up on a slave boat to Minrathous any day now."

"Wherever it takes me, I'd be content with just being on a boat," Isabela said with a grin. "Then I'll take care of other inconveniences."

"You've been lucky," Armand said flatly. "Luck is chaotic for a reason."

"I can take care of myself. That has nothing to do with luck," Isabela retorted.

"You think yourself too valuable," Armand said, shaking his head. "Survival is your strong suit, but your right to freedom ends where the other's begins."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Isabela asked angrily.

"Be careful who you call friend and who you call usable object," Armand said flatly.

"You don't know me, elf," Isabela retorted defensively.

"I've seen a thousand like you," Armand said with calm disgust. "I don't need to know more." He went by the remaining tents left her hanging.

"What was that all about?" Hawke came by her and asked.

"Harmless flirtations," Isabela lied nonchalantly. "I can't wait to sleep."

"You can say that again," Hawke said with a smile. "We ready to go?"

"As soon as Varric's done with his business in the woods," Dorian said. "Ladies, can you help me here?"

In the meantime, Armand beckoned subtly for Fenris to come by the camp.

"Ready for lesson number one, little bitch?"

Fenris crossed his arms grumpily, "Proceed away, Doctor Love."

"She's a mean trickster, yes?" Armand asked perceptively.

"Very much so," Fenris said grumpily. "She's not a liar, but using the truth to deceive is all the more effective by her principles."

"Beat the trickster at his own game. And how do you do that?" Armand said while sharping up his knife. Fenris didn't answer. "You either use their weapon against them or you surprise them with a new kind of attack."

"I'm familiar with these stratagems. Sadly, she knows them by heart," Fenris said calmly.

Armand laughed. "I take it she's been winning at her game for some time now."

Fenris shook his head, remembering all those witty stratagems she used on him in the beginning, "You have no idea."

"Ego te provoco," Armand said flatly. "Turn the tables. Throw the gauntlet, you know."

"Provoker her?" Fenris asked bewilderedly.

"Well, if you say she's a scrapper, why not turn the table? From whence you came, you shall remain. You can't let her carry this game."

"Fine, state your strategy."

"Vero nihil verus. There's nothing truer than the truth. You know, the truth is beautiful, as the black hair woman said – and that's why it hates delay. So provoke her to be true. In so, forgive the cliché, but the truth will set you free."

"Right, is this some kind of 'a word to the wise' and the hearer can fill in the rest? Because you're just stating platitudes at the moment."

"Forgive me, I'm being nostalgic of those words of wisdom. They're probably the only thing I miss about that filthy Imperium."

"Be more specific, verba gratia," Fenris said angrily.

"If you assault her for answers, she won't back down. That much I can see about your redhead."

"She's not  _my_ redhead," Fenris said defensively.

Armand sighed, "Alright, little bitch.  _That_ redhead. Who kissed who yesterday?"

"She did."

"That makes things much simpler. Take any opportunity to disarm her. Ah, my brain is not working, what was the expression… Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west."

"Meaning?"

"You create an element of expectation in the enemy's eyes, then surprise him with an attack where his defenses are weakened. So, in other words, if she is such a good conversational strategist, attack her by using other means. She expects you to be silent or argue with her, yes? That's what you've been doing."

"What do you want me to do? Scare her to death for a confession?"

"No, no, nothing blunt. You know this wouldn't work. She will fight back stubbornly and effectively. No," Armand said decisively and shook his palm, the gestured, "Make it more ah… blunt, yet slow. A damager over time thing."

"No more riddles, please."

"Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat. While carrying out your plans be flexible enough to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself, however small, and avail yourself of any profit, however slight. Like now –My friend and the other human will want to sleep in the carriage. I can issue the dwarf to come sit with me as I drive. Then you'll have an opportunity. Strike with exactly what you've been doing and not talking about."

"What?"

"That's your least expected attack. She knows you wouldn't be so cocky and teasing, at least not in public."

"What you're implying sounds like mild rape."

Armand laughed. "It's not rape if the other is willing. And call it for what it is – an innocent form of harassment. Nobody has to rape anyone."

"Can you give me something else to work with?"

"If that doesn't work, you can jump and bark at me later and I'll give you lesson number two, yes?"

"You're just as bad as her."

Armand laughed. "Of course. Redheads are evil. You have white hair, you can take on any color you want, you understand?"

Fenris shook his head. "I wish I could say no, but you make some sense."

"Of course I do," Armand said commandingly. "I've already been through this."

Fenris crossed his arms, "Yes, evidently so."

Armand flinched for half a second and assumed an assaultive position. "Don't be sad, don't be blue, don't ask questions you don't want the answer to. Yes, little bitch?"

"Your mocking threat is nothing if not deeply unnecessary," Fenris said with an unimpressed grimace. Then he practically lied, "I have no interest in your tale."

"Good," Armand said while brushing the knife on his palm. "Keep it that way."

* * *

**Inside the Carriage, Approaching The Weyrs**

Armand kept his word and beckoned for Varric to go next to him and keep him company while driving the carriage when Isabela and Dorian indeed dozed off after, mind you, the cruel and revolting process of singing extremely dirty songs in extremely out of sync tones.

Hawke kept saying she wanted to sleep, but didn't actually keep to her apparent persistency, much as always when it came to sleep.

As if by telepathy, Armand looked back in the carriage to Fenris with a firm look and a decisive nod, to which he responded much the same and turned his head to Hawke. He scooted over the two sleeping 'beauties' and went for the furthest in the back bench where she was sitting peacefully, looking behind outside.

When he took a seat, firstly at a mechanically made polite distance, Hawke turned her head with a surprised frown, "You wish something of me?"

"A company better than a rock, to say the least?" Fenris said nonchalantly.

She narrowed her eyes at him and kept staying on her knees on the bench to face the small window at the back of the carriage. She turned her head to the window and said, "Not much I can do for you, Sir. I'm as helpful as a dying lemming at the moment."

"You don't look or smell dead enough," Fenris retaliated with a short grin. Throwing the gauntlet… any time now…

"Give it a minute," Hawke said jokingly and smiled without looking at him.

"Sadly, my patience is at an end," Fenris said firmly and pulled her by the short Warden robe as to get her to turn around and sit back on the bench normally.

She opposed him with resistance and he kept trying to pull her down. "Could you stop it? If it rips, you pay for it."

"And I am poor," Fenris said in amusement. "So you better come down here before you engage in a bargain without cause for gain."

"I'd rather watch the scenery, thank you," Hawke said nonchalantly.

Armand's long years of training as an assassin shrouded in shadows made his ears very sharp. Unlike Varric, who was talking his mouth like a beating drum anyway telling some dragon slaying story. He grew tired of this painful scene and drove the carriage over a bump, to which the carriage jolted heavily.

Back inside, Hawke pretty much fell on her left on top of Fenris, who caught her as he fell on his back against half the wall and half on the bench. He kept his hands wrapped around her with firm decisiveness and gave her a very big and evil grin which screamed 'You're screwed'. She looked at him with a fierce scowl and cheeks boiling red with fire. He raised them up and brushed his gauntlet on her thigh, as he leaned forward still immobilizing her with one strong hand and started kissing slowly on her neck.

"What are you doing?" Hawke asked quietly with masked calmness.

He didn't answer her.

"Fen-  _ah,_ " she gasped and pressed her eyes, "Fenris what are you doi- _hhing_ ," she stuttered and tensed.

He muttered through his kisses, "My mouth is too busy to answer your foolish question."

"Sto - _hop_ ," she tried to say and tensed even more, catching him by the arm that was holding her so brutally. Her eyes were going through the back of her head, "I mean  _hiih_  -t."

He sunk his teeth into her with perfect control, not caring anymore about the consequences. Her attempted constraints meant nothing to him. And to her as well, so it started to seem, for she was melting in his grip like ice on fire. He brushed the spikes gently up her thigh and moved her loose hair away from her ear, assaulting it calmly with more slow and lethally diabolical kisses and little bites. She breathed hard and he saw with the back of his eye how she bit her lip to stop whatever sound was screaming to come out of her at this evil and petty move he made on her.

Yes, that was it. Throwing the gauntlet. She couldn't get out of this form of attack even she wanted to. She was trying to pull away only faintly, but even so, he decisively grabbed her face and turned it to face him, meet her tortured and aroused figure begging him to stop. But no, two can play at this game. He gave her a giant wicked grin and continued his devil's work all over her neck again. Whatever she was doing, it wasn't for the purpose of stopping him. She thrust her nails in his thigh and held on to it firmly. Was she trying to beat him at his own game? She brushed her nails up aggressively until the head of the femur, then grabbed his inner thigh as an open threat. His reason didn't work very well at that point, for it could have been over for the growing bulge in his pants in a second if she decided to suddenly use her gauntlet to strip him of any change to have a family.

Thank the gods, for she didn't do that, although he felt guilty to admit to himself – that it filled him with a curious rush of dark desire. He sensed a threat in her posture, but also an immense vigor, as well as harmlessness. But again that sense of bliss descended upon him, and the sight of Hawke's forceful slim body up ahead of him was a constant guilty delight.

Instead of leaving him childless, she inhaled deeply, bit her lip again to withhold all sounds and moved her hand to forcefully grab him by the throat. She looked so diabolically furious, telepathically saying with her eyes 'You wanna mess with me?' and she squeezed his neck tighter. Whatever, they seemed marvelous to him and they maddened his already boyish sense of adventure and desire. She brought him closer, bumping foreheads and breathing hot air on his neck and preparing for murder. She quickly bit his lip and forced his mouth open, pushing her tongue in with an even more driven fury than the last time they had such an encounter. He was cornered and under her full command, but allowing her every move to possess him. She was up to something, he knew it, as he felt a smirk drawing on her playful little mouth. He sensed something powerful coming that was immensely alien to his understanding.

With her other arm she escaped his insistent grip and to the mighty gods and holy trinities, she bluntly and with no little shame shoved her hand between his legs and he could feel the spikes brushing only very gently on his pants. Evil conniving little - She immediately let go of his throat and pushed her hand over his mouth before he let out that one ferocious moan that was coming out. Teaching him a lesson not to mess with her. He looked quickly at the front – nobody saw them, Armand was listening to Varric's loud story and the others were still fully asleep and lying on the floor.

Fine, he learnt his lesson, his heart was beating out of his chest, his cheeks were blushing violently and his pants were pulsating, to say the least… but she wasn't done, was she? No, with Hawke there's always more if she can help it. She gave him a victorious and taunting smirk, letting her hand stay in place over his mouth. He pressed his eyes tightly shut as she started doing the same thing to him, only from his point of view – much, much better. Damned evil souls of the fucking demonic plague, she was good. Every touch sent electrical shocks and shivers down his spine that throbbed in his ribs and made his thigh muscles spasm. She bit progressively along his pointy ear and once she reached the top, she bit only gently, but all the more acutely. Oh, that was even bette- worse… why, why did he have to listen to that elf… Kaffas. She licked the length of his ear with only the wicked tip of her tongue while only faintly caressing his maxillary with the spikes of her gauntlet that was keeping him mute. Very well that she kept him that way, for a million desperate groans were trying to burst out of him. It was too much to bear.

She brutally let go of him in an instant, seeming yet unsatisfied, but landed very nonchalantly at the other end of the bench, grabbing her book back and placing her legs over the arousal in his pants. All that in just a second, as she looked at the front of the carriage and smiled, waving childishly at an unsuspecting and eyebrow-raising Varric, whose attention quickly got diverted by an all-knowingly Armand.

Hawke looked back at him and met a very troubled, tortured, almost dead enough gaze of Fenris. He eyed her with a throbbing shock in his everything, breathing quietly and killing her in his mind. She gave him another triumphant smirk and raised the front of her hand at him and bent every finger consecutively while leaving the middle one up in the air.

_Bitch._

_You snooze, you loose,_  Hawke retorted to him telepathically.  _And don't do that again, yes?_

* * *

**Nighttime, The Weyrs, Third Camp**

Armand was a kind man. Fenris oversaw him talk something calmly with his secret lover to which the last one approved with a sigh and gestured assuringly that he wouldn't mind.

Meanwhile, he caught Hawke eyeing him with a questionable look from the other very close fire pit. It was either an 'I kill you' look or 'Please help and get me out of here' look, which could have easily been it for Varric and Isabela were making up a wild story about her and Armand being the 'Diabolical Duo Of The Macabre And Then Some'. He couldn't even tell anymore, but whatever it was, he ignored her completely and looked at the throbbing fire. It was slowly dying, so he interrupted their tale and said, "I need wood. Do you have any more wood?"

Hawke snorted heavily trying not to laugh with extremely lifted eyebrows. Isabela caught her drift and started giggling, too.

He frowned at her, for he didn't get it. "Do I really need to repeat myself?"

"Yes," Hawke said in-between suffocating. "What did you need? I think I misheard."

"I need wood," Fenris repeated syllabically with a colossal frown and Hawke burst into laughter.

He scowled angrily at her, for he lost his patience with her after everything that had happened and shouted, "Vishante kaffas, Hawke, why do you need to make everything so hard?"

At that, Hawke exploded from ferocious laughter and fell onto her back, holding onto her abdomen. Isabela and Varric were laughing, too and he didn't get what was all this mockery about.

He got up and cursed aggressively, which helped him tremendously not to go right at her and lift her up by the throat. "What's so incredibly funny, Hawke? Hm?"

"I'm sorry," Hawke said in-between panting and lying on the grass, "Did you need more wood to erect something?"

"Yes, Hawke, that's usually how it goes with –" he stopped and finally got it. He quickly spat on the ground and left, at which Armand sought to finish his conversation with Dorian early and follow him.

Fenris rushed in heavy fury, throwing curses growingly and disappearing somewhere after a set of trees. He stopped and stood in the summer heat and in the soft dust, breathing in the scent of the viciously hot wind he was more than accustomed to and peering towards the purple velvety sky, beyond which the road, now much neglected, gave forth its few persistent and sorrowful fire torches.

Why was he standing here?

Why did he stand alone in the shadows like a cowardly angry rat, waiting, as if for his grief to be redoubled, as if for his loneliness to be sharpened, so that he would become unemotional again, with his past fine-tuned senses of a beast?

Then gradually, the awareness stole over him, separating him totally from the melancholic surroundings he made so. He tangled in every portion of his being as his eyes saw that his mind desperately wanted to deny.

He sat aggressively on a piece of… wood, and rested his elbows on his knees, still cursing and swearing of every existing and invented holy god and trinity.

Armand himself seemed scarcely a moment before he joined him. Fenris looked towards the woods. The wind was strong. He wondered if this hurt her, what he was doing. For all he could fathom out, he measured her passion as he was looking into her eyes and it seemed just plainly more that than. Even in those maddeningly hot encounters – she touched him with distinctive warmth she could not deny, even he knew it. And how could she not – they spent two years forming a friendship, a certain intimacy that did not rush into anything sexual, well, until he started it all. And now he was ruining it. Perhaps he ought to it to bring her whatever, she was—his friend, his lover, his retarded ghost, his ridiculously beautiful clown mage —back to him, back to the warmth of his past, silent affection, back to his old sense of responsibility for her, back to friendly intimacy they once shared, before all hell broke loose.

Without looking at Armand, Fenris suspected that this strange elf did not leave the slave world behind him so effortlessly, perhaps even harder than he did? One could not just assume. But he did have all his memories of being a slave with him since his very childhood, whereas Fenris was still particularly young, a ridiculous freak-show of a new-born in plain filth and misery. He felt Armand's memories still festering within him – that this was not easy for him either to rememorize – yet he was disposed completely to believe him.

"It didn't go so well, no?" Armand finally said calmly as he approached him without fear.

Fenris looked up at him and eyed him murderously, having no fear for him now himself. "I should have never listened to you. You know nothing."

"I know a lot, but it can't work out from the first try, litl-… Fenris," Armand said firmly. "It's the same with diseases. You give a man a lousy plant, then when it doesn't work you give him another kind until the cure is found."

Fenris pressed his eyes tightly and growled through his teeth, "I wish I could be cured of this evil cancer."

Armand laughed hoarsely, "That evil cancer is moping around giving you glances whenever you're not looking, you big child," he pressed while gesturing towards the camp. "Just calm your tits and tell me what happened."

"What happened?" Fenris said mockingly. "I'll tell you what happened – I surprised her with your east – west idiotic strategy and she utterly and positively beat me at my own game. She made me her defenseless little desire puppet, all under her own command."

Armand frowned, "This is not slavery, if this is what you're mad about."

Fenris growled and looked at him aggressively, "Of course it's not, I'm not an idiot. What frustrates me is her defeating me at my every attempt. It's exhausting," he said and shook his head. "It's just…"

Armand sighed and sat down on the grass to have his eyesight in line with Fenris's. "You still are intent on having her?"

Fenris didn't answer, instead looking silently at the ground and scowling. Finally he said with a disapproving, self-loathing tone, "Yes."

"Remember what I said the other day?" Armand asked in a calm town which relaxed Fenris down.

"That she is broken," Fenris said bitterly. "Aren't we all?"

"This is not a love-broken thing. I don't know what it is, but holds a power over her, that much is clear to me."

"That's sheer nonsense," Fenris shouted angrily. "I will not hear of it." His face flushed with fury and denial.

Armand looked at him persistently, ignoring his misplaced anger, "Do you want her to get over her burdens?"

Fenris frowned colossally. He was impressed with himself, that he had not hesitated. "Of course I do. Probably just as much as she –" He stopped and pondered for a second, his eyebrows joining in a scowl. Apart from what Armand was implying, he made it no secret that he was a flight risk. For all his apparent loyalty to her, he seemed barely attached to Kirkwall and in her eyes, he could have left any minute if anything went wrong. Of course… and somehow it's the other way around.

Armand remained in polite silence, but finally sighed and pressed, "Have patience", he advised him. "You either provoke her until she breaks or you leave her alone and she will come to you. It's your choice. You already made yourself clear to her."

"This is ridiculous," Fenris said defensively. "What was in my head when I started all this? Where was my head?" he half-shouted in amazement at himself, seeming so impressed by his desperation that he needed a few seconds to sink it all in.

"If it's any consolation to you," Armand hastened to add, "I've seen the way she looks at you. Let alone the way she behaves around you. Her loyalty to you is without a doubt."

Fenris looked up at the perceptive little commanding Antivan and remained silent. He added, "I do not think she means to turn you down."

And with that he felt himself calm down almost entirely, sighing in relief for a second within himself. He saw his own blunder, and had to admit to himself that it wasn't deliberate. But, in a sick way – yet not outright ill-intentioned – he did wish to hurt her, there was no doubt of it. And this he had done. Either that or she really didn't give a damn about him and her nonchalance was genuinely pure.

Armand looked in different directions and finally added, "This wasn't pie for me either. Mind you, I was kind of like her in my particular situation. Being assaultive in my defenses, stealing kisses impulsively when I pleased and when I boiled too much. I grew tired of it quickly."

"How?" Fenris asked insistently.

Armand sighed and looked down, "I only knew lying and murder. And it was exactly the opposite of what I strived to be. I'm sure you can relate. I was also very … well, quiet and defensive, but when I opened my mouth – everything was in said in a tone of an insult. And when I met …" he paused and sighed, "him, I walked into a whole new place and one upon which I depended heavily for some sense of normality, no matter that it was a mere illusion, but then, perhaps normality is always an illusion. Who am I to say?" Armand said bitterly, then continued his patient explanation, "Anyway, I clung onto that familiar territory because it was safer. Tried to convince myself that what I was feeling was plain crap and I shouldn't fool myself. Even if he was standing right in front of me, under my nose, welcoming me, no questions asked."

" _How_ ," Fenris pressed, for he didn't answer his question.

Armand continued, "My point is – these familiarities, these childish defenses, however justified, perished like dust when I allowed myself a moment of… clarity. Like taking a breath and looking around – the feeling sank in- that I was free, that I was accepted. That I didn't need much, but I had what I needed. That nothing and no one else was like him and… it was just peace and calm in my, well, in my soul. Every other poison that was etched into it was being banished or terminated in those moments."

Fenris didn't answer, clinging to his silence as a sign for the Antivan to finish, for he still didn't make sense. "This is something both of you need to learn. I give you these words of wisdom now because you are so true in your intent, Fenris, but have you asked yourself if you're ready to take on this kind of commitment? Let go of your problems, allow yourself some happiness? In all honesty?" Armand asked. Fenris didn't answer this time either. "You're too busy being mad with thoughts of her, all the while being mad at her as well. Once you get rid of this childish competition acts, you two will see some reason. But it's not that hard. And even if only one or both of you make it so – it is worth it," Armand said calmly, this time looking straight into his eyes. His Antivan accent stung him with the truth, "Trust me."

That seemed to make perfect sense at the moment, perhaps only because he wanted it to make sense, so that neither of them would be deeply hurt by some more commanding truth. He couldn't be more envious of this elf, though, all the while being in awe of his kindness, his courtesy to reach out to him. It was still utterly ridiculous and revolting, but it helped.

Fenris had a dawning sense of how much delight awaited him. Never mind his dark past. He was still furious, but had some sense even then that anger renders one weak.

And his need of Hawke became so terrible that he could not envision her or think of her anymore. But still, he thought desperately, if this man Armand can preserve such kindness and patience, this strange liberty within him and with taking a lover – if love could bind him and prevent him from breaking apart, if his disparate provinces in his mind splintered by the cruelty of his past can be united by accepting love, and with that, freedom… If Armand cold keep back the barbaric sense in him, which only apparently, seemed would forever pillage his mind without building or preserving anything… who was he to judge,  _I, who am outside of life?_


	26. La Regina Dei Dannati

Once they reached the outskirts of Rialto, right along the shores, they took a break and sank the scenery in. It was… different. Breath-taking, hauntingly beautiful, very rainy – at least the last one Hawke viciously enjoyed and thanked the gods for.

"So, you and your kinsmen? Are you a… happy lot?" Hawke asked sarcastically, demanding of Armand to finally admit to his business.

He gave her a soft gentle laugh, which scared her to bits, "Oh, yes, my kinsmen; some of them have met with the most unfortunate end. Indeed, it is my understanding that the Grand Council of Antiva City believes they were murdered by those from whom they exacted much heavy payments. One should never linger in Antiva City with such evil designs, not even if you are a Crow. It gives you a certain immunity, but not to your own."

"Now you talk  _and_ laugh?" Hawke asked in amazement. "Wake me up, this is clearly a Tuesday."

Armand was feeling particularly chatty today, "But I am blameless. Members of the Grand Council have told many a Crow as much. And you would not think it but I am going to become richer on account of this."

"So this is your business in helping out a  _friend_? You're going back to your mother country which lurks over you like a jealous husband waiting to kill you at their doorstep … to get richer."

"No, it's not the coin that I'm interested in," Armand said sharply. "I would do it much less for nothing. Friendship and honour I hold very dear to me."

"You're happy?" Hawke asked perceptively.

"You do know much about me without asking do you not?" Armand said flatly.

"Oh, you have no idea," Hawke said with a gracious smile. "So about that answer you were supposed to give me."

"I am a happier man," he said almost softly, looking at the beach and the horizon that spread golden beams of searing light, refracting into the rain and forming rainbows as the they went, "Indeed, I am someone altogether different, for I know a freedom now that was inconceivable before."

"You're lying by using the truth," Hawke hastened with her remark. She gave him a firm look as he looked at her unyieldingly with the back of his eye, "Be wholly truthful, for the sake of it."

Armand didn't flinch, but bit his lip and sighed, "You know."

"Of course I know," Hawke said in outrage. "I'm no fool. You're taking Dory away from me."

"As if he was ever  _yours,_ " Armand said with a snort.

"Don't make haste with terrible preconceptions," Hawke said commandingly. "He's my friend. I'm sure you can relate to that,  _and_ more."

Armand was resting his elbows on the edge of the carriage while looking very annoyed and it was almost as if in all that calm and grumpiness, he would lash out at her at any second. "He deserves a better life. As his  _friend,_ you should let him go enjoy the chance."

Hawke smiled bitterly, "You have no idea – I mean, you do, but as a matter of speech, you have no idea how truly deserving he is to be happy and free of that brothel and Kirkwall altogether. Besides _you_ , whenever that happened, I was his only delight once a week and I even struggled to spare some coin so I could see him, even if my back didn't ask for it urgently."

Armand inhaled deeply, "I know. He told me everything."

Hawke widened her eyes and her mouth opened faintly, but he continued, "Everything I needed to know, at least." She lifted her eyebrows in confusion and he sighed with a tilt to his head, "I get jealous," Armand confessed grumpily, scratching at his shoulder defensively.

She laughed softly, "That's terribly … well, it's not that surprising."

"I should not think otherwise," Armand agreed knightly. "You're a good woman, Hawke."

"It's purely coincidence," Hawke said sarcastically. "Honestly, I do things and then I come out looking quite the opposite of what I am."

Armand grimaced disapprovingly and shook his head faintly, "Don't give me that."

"Right, I forgot you have no sense of humor," Hawke said with a smirk.

"You just used the truth masked by an innocent jest," Armand retaliated perceptively. "You are too hard on yourself. It must be terribly exhausting."

"I try," Hawke said sarcastically. "I try and succeed, every time."

"Now that was pure sarcasm," Armand said with a short grin. Then he looked down and thought he owed a courtesy both to Dorian and to Fenris to take on this opportunity, "What of you and white hair boy?"

"What of us?" Hawke asked in confusion. "Don't tell me you placed a bet on us, too. You'll get even richer by the end of this trip with your obviously  _keen_ eye."

"You keep pushing away, it's exhausting even for me to watch," Armand said grumpily. "And I've been in your company just a week or so. Your friends there have been for years witnessing this child play."

"I have the great simplicity of a child," Hawke said proudly with a smile.

"And yet you don't use it when it's most useful," Armand retorted with his arms crossed. "I'm just curious how much it's going to take you before you implode."

"I get it," Hawke said perceptively. "You owe it to Dory to make one last amend for all the cruelty you've done under someone else's command, as a courtesy to a friend's friend. And then there's also the obvious fact that you were a slave and Fenris was a slave – and well, it all goes downhill from there…"

"So?" Armand asked nonchalantly. "Can't I help a lost soul out of sheer willingness?"

"You can and it's honourable," Hawke said approvingly.

"But you don't need much help, do you," Armand said with great perception. "No, why would you need any."

"Someone's being very psychoAnal today," Hawke said in amusement. "It's always like this with you strong and quiet men. Ask your question."

"What are you going to do?" Armand went straight to the point.

"I'll make peace with my business here and then I'll sort the other matters of the heart that can wait," Hawke said firmly. "Reasonable enough, no?"

"You're torturing the boy," Armand said with a subtle hint of compassion.

"I didn't ask for this. And regardless, he's doing the same thing to me, does he not?" Hawke pressed. "Well, certainly you had something to do with this, but even if you didn't, it would all be much the same."

"And you think this is healthy for your friendship?" Armand asked disapprovingly.

"It's unhealthy for us to even get involved," Hawke said with a bitter sigh. "But this won't go away. Unless, well, he goes away."

"You think he's going to flee," Armand declared flatly. "That it's too much."

"I think it's possible for him to flee from any other reason just as well," Hawke said calmly. "I know I would, if there was no family to be tied to, without having a constant responsibility for something."

"He's taking you as his responsibility. Is that not enough?" Armand gestured eagerly.

"He doesn't know what that implies," Hawke said with a mild sigh. "Believe me, I welcomed him with open arms. There was no judgement on my part for his seeming inadequacy, struggling to get accustomed with freedom – I even tried to help him, as subtly and wholeheartedly as I can. But how many shocks do you want to give a man in such a short time before he finds it overwhelming?"

"You two are clearly a bunch of overthinking fools," Armand said sharply.

"I'm sorry, can you account otherwise for  _your_ love story?" Hawke retorted straight below the belt.

Armand looked at her in hesitation. "Not really."

"I thought as much," Hawke said with a victorious smirk. "Well, at least you didn't flee."

"He is loyal to you. Take it from another former slave. He won't flee, even if things go wrong. He has already grown roots and a found a home with you people," Armand said perceptively.

"I know," Hawke said and inhaled deeply. "I mean I don't know. I just have a feeling."

"You have more feelings to account for, kid. What are you doing?" Armand asked almost desperately, but keeping a nonchalant tone.

"Well, let's see – for now, I'm going to Antiva and taking care of my business, assure my lifetime supply for cigarillos , and I'm not exaggerating for I don't think I'm going to live that long," Hawke said with a bitter smile. "And to the matter of what you're ever so graciously pressing on – we're friends. We started our friendship by constant barking and mocking and a lot of deep conversations. Now, because of recent events, we're basically doing the same thing, as in, attacking each other, but through different, more concrete means. And that doesn't really leave much space for the deep conversations which might involve the truth about all this."

"You are aware of this and yet you let it continue?" Armand asked in amazement.

"I don't want to," Hawke said while frowning. "I mean," she paused, "I didn't  _predict_  the things that have happened. I only just now realized this. He'd taken me by surprise and I was certain that I was doing him a favour myself, because just as much as I, he wasn't really ready to face this issue."

"So?" Armand said with a scowl.

"So – as I keep repeating – taking care of business first, resolving matters of the heart later. Romances that start on a trip never end well. I'm not an idiot."

"You are, but, the good kind," Armand said more to himself, remaining honestly impressed. "Be good to him."

Hawke smiled at him, "I will – but only if you promise on Dorian's firm little butt that you won't whisper any of this to your new friend."

Armand frowned at her and she lifted her eyebrows in confident waiting. "Fine."

"No, no – you have to solemnly promise with the whole phrase."

He rolled his eyes, "I solemnly promise on..." he paused and gave her a homicidal look, "Dorian's firm little but that this conversation doesn't leave this line in the sand." He drew a line with his foot to make it more graphic.

"Thank you," Hawke said and smiled. "For both stuff."

"My pleasure, apparently," Armand sighed through his teeth.

"Now, I wanna sodding swim!" Hawke shouted cockily and ran towards the others who were setting camp.

Armand shook his head and sighed. She was just like Dorian had told him she was. He was impressed, but it looked funny to him how those two decided to approach this. It reminded him of how terribly clumsy he used to be. After saving Martin from drowning they both came to Kirkwall and set up shop and took mercenary jobs. He was already used to humans and free cities, but that didn't help him at all, from his point of view.

* * *

One day he felt himself desperate and accepted a noble wife's job to follow her husband wherever he went. Of course, the job was beneath him, but the pay was heavy and he swallowed his pride and took it. It wasn't anything demeaning for him; more for the man he was following.

And just when this man seemed the best of saints, he ended up in the Blooming Rose. He tried to blend in, sit at a table and wait for the man to finish his betrayal, when an annoyingly cocky voice from behind came, "My, never in my whole life have I seen someone so stoic sitting in a brothel."

Of course, he deflected, told him to avert his eyes for he wasn't interested in him. Dorian was unimpressed and assured him he wouldn't take him even if he paid for the premium package. Then all hell broke loose. He had never allowed himself to fight uselessly with somebody just for the sake of it. There were just so many words in the world one could waste. But then he found himself debating and arguing with this elf from the subject of prostitution to every other depth of life and he pushed him away thereafter.

Oh, such idiocy on his part, even he saw that the elf didn't care for his assaultive attitude. He welcomed his remarks and practically wasted his time on duty to talk to him until the Madam bitched at both of them to either pay and get a room or go back to their separate business.

And a few months passed until Armand found himself in a terrible need of something. He thought to himself – what an idiot he was, being mad with thoughts of going to the brothel to pay for a room just to hear that delightful unperturbed voice of Dorian letting him bitch away in a way he had never let loose before, when he suddenly turned into a verbal and illustrative dictionary of the common tongue. So many words he spoke.

He thought – what a terrible waste of life to have such a bright mind encaged in a dead-end and unworthy profession. He quickly let those thoughts go until one night he had to meet with an employer that demanded the Rose as a rendezvous place. He almost seemed like a child excited to go to the circus, but controlled himself and cursed at himself on the way.

As the Rivaini woman, Isabela, was vaguely explaining that she needed a relic tracked down, his eye wondered curiously in hopes he would see that elf again. He heard his name demanded by a massive and grumpy man from the Madam. He also heard something about a package of horror or sadism. "Hey, are you even listening? My eyes are over here," Isabela said angrily, but he was distracted. His eye went straight for the rooms and saw Dorian coming out and recognizing the massive beast who was climbing the stairs. The elf seemed perfectly unperturbed by anything that came to him, except now he saw genuine fear in his eyes, a heavy swallow and his legs trembling.

After a while he couldn't take it, he felt himself driven to barge in over there. Why? Even now he can't answer. But it was good that he did, because the man was about to outright kill him. Dorian was screaming from pain and couldn't take the torture anymore. He closed the door and told the man calmly that he could choose to walk away forever or he ends up on the torture cross with his head sawn to his crotch. The man believed him some kind of brothel guard and let it go – which was good. That he didn't cause a scene. Armand would have been banned from the Rose otherwise.

But of course, Dorian lashed out at him that he didn't need a guardian angel, that he lost him a very good paying client, that he could take all of it. And he found himself telling him that he didn't have to take this terrible filth to make a living. Oh, his speech was so long and true and Dorian was so unimpressed. More was he himself impressed by his sudden outburst of emotion and his need to lecture this elf that this was no life.

Bah, what is in his head. He didn't know. Dorian frightened him, for some reason. He was so determined to stand his ground that he felt guilty for prying. He told him he would take that good paying client's place and make up for the difference. Dorian laughed at him with tears, " _You?_  You have a terrible sense of honour, serah and I very much want to just appreciate it, but you're way out of your mind and your budget."

Armand just smirked at him arrogantly and assured him it was his wish and he couldn't argue over it. He ignored the ridiculousness of the situation, why he would even do that, and kept paying for the elf. Of course, he needed to actually be  _there_ , which he took advantage of, much for Dorian's annoyance. He had to waste an hour of his life doing things he wasn't supposed to be paid for. Armand had no interest in abusing of  _that_ service. That only made things worse, until became much better and Dorian admitted he found a friend in him, much to his surprise.

And everything seemed fine and distracting until finally, he  _did_ take advantage of his rights… and all hell broke loose. His touch, his smile, this whole fantasy life he had built up in his mind and progressed to something even more powerful… it was too much.

He laughed at himself now. Such a raging stupid coward he became. It took him a very long time to understand what he felt and that this was nothing, if not a real paradise that he had to accept he deserved. But until that time, it was hauntingly painful.

For everything Armand put him through, he couldn't help but try to make an honourable amend and give up his fears for the North and take him out of that Maker forsaken brothel and excuse of a free city. Once they reached Antiva and he helped his friend, everything was about Dorian, who would follow him to the Dark City itself if he had to; this he knew for certain and he couldn't be more grateful for it. So he would give him the life he deserved.

* * *

As he reminisced, he watched Hawke arguing with Fenris about something, then she ran straight to the sea and Fenris kept watching her insistently as she went. Armand could recognize that drive anywhere. It was much like…-  _Oh you big clever bitch._

He shook his head and remained impressed – Hawke really was the smart little prick Dorian couldn't stop talking about (which made him jealous to bits for a while).

If she didn't oppose Fenris with such resistance - even if that brutal territory was just familiarity for her and him alike - if Hawke had been open with her desire for him and welcomed him directly – Fenris would run away from her and see it as too much for him. Even if she wasn't aware of this smart move, he thought what a clever way to distract Fenris from his anxiety and feelings of unworthiness. She opened up a new world for him, made him comfortable within it, then when "all hell broke loose", she kept him hanging and driven, making use of a man's natural and primitive instinct to chase after what he wanted. In doing so, she indirectly made him explore these feelings in another, much clearer perspective. He wouldn't get corrupted by the fears of his past, because he was too busy questioning why he couldn't get her and why he wanted her so badly. In this way, he made him become honest with himself about what stormed in his soul, instead of having her run after him and overwhelm him. Of course he would back away and hurt her.

How could he not see this? This was exactly what Dorian did to him. Whatever Hawke was doing and regardless of whether she was aware of it or not – it was good.

"Preparing for the Statue Look Alike International Competitions again, love?" Dorian said with the delightful familiar smile as he approached him.

Armand felt himself not caring for the others in the distance and put a hand over Dorian's shoulder protectively and took him gently by the chin, kissing him powerfully. Then as he brushed his hair, he gave him a piercing and only apparently, sorrowful look.

"What was that for? What's wrong?" Dorian asked in surprise.

Armand kept wondering with his eyes all over his figure and finally exhaled, "Just saying thank you, for everything."

Dorian raised an eyebrow and gave him a crooked smile, "I can think of other ways for you to  _thank_ me, you big choleric lunatic."

"Get in the carriage," Armand commanded sharply with a decisive look.

* * *

**Meanwhile at the short camp…**

"Maybe you should grow wings. As far as I can tell, that's the only thing that would make you stop seeing  _everything_ as danger," Hawke said in annoyance to Fenris.

"I can't simply deny what is real," Fenris said grumpily and then mocked her Qunari-infused philosophies, "I can't simply not  _be._ "

Hawke raised an eyebrow, seeming unimpressed and mocked him back, "Parshaara."

"I'm not saying it's sharks, but," Fenris said with a grin, "but it's sharks."

"Well, suit yourself," Hawke said cockily and shrugged. "I'm going in regardless. Might as well ride a shark, if I won't get to ride a dragon anytime soon."

"Happy dying out there," Fenris said nonchalantly without looking at her.

But he kept his look on her when she had her back turned as always. She ran to the sea and stopped in the shallow waters and his heart kept throbbing in his chest at the fear that she would recklessly put herself in danger if she went in entirely.

To his surprise, she only stood there for a few minutes and let the golden landscape sink in, then came back to them and said, "Alright, I've got about enough of this. I never liked the sea."

"Give me a few minutes here," Varric said in annoyance. "Bianca's cocking ring is off."

Hawke snorted. "Her what? You had me at cock-"

"So help me, I'll shoot you in the nose, Hawke," Varric said angrily. "From one Bianca to another."

"I keep forgetting how much of an angry lunatic you become when fondling her," Hawke said calmly and shook her head.

"Never mess with a man in love," Isabela said approvingly.

"That's bullshit," Hawke retorted with a raised eyebrow. "As if that's the only worthy reason to get off your lazy ass and fight."

"I didn't say it was  _worthy_ ," Isabela chuckled. "At best it's endearing – and I'm sugar coating it."

"Speak of it for what it is," Hawke said firmly. "Foolish."

"That's still sugar coating it," Isabela said with a smirk. "But enough, I'm feeling sick with such thoughts and we're by the  _sea_. That's terribly confusing and embarrassing."

"Poor Izzy," Hawke said mockingly. "Got too used to the earth?"

"Shush, Hawke," Isabela said a bit sharply.

"Never mess with a woman in love?" Hawke said in amusement, looking at her and Varric. "Aw, you two are adorable."

"Cut it out," Isabela said angrily. "You're no better."

Hawke crossed her arms with a smirk, "Is there something you want to get off your chest, Bela?"

Isabela assumed a threatening pose, "As a matter of fact, yes –"

"I did it! Oh, baby you had me so scared," Varric shouted, interrupting her. "Now we're good to go."

"Finally," Fenris said grumpily, cursing at the dwarf in his mind that he didn't let Isabela assault Hawke.

* * *

**Sunset, Antiva City**

As Hawke glanced for a second at the city they just entered, she remembered her Father's words:

"Yes, Antiva City… that city drew me so. It was a fairly new city, in that it had not existed in the ancient times and it was now a great port. In fact, it was very likely the greatest city of all the North. I remember it well; the Black Death had come to it by way of ships in its harbor, and thousands were desperately sick at that time. The first time I was there, I found a city full of gorgeous palaces built upon dark green canals. But the Black Death had ahold of the populace who were dying in huge numbers daily and ferries were taking the bodies out to be buried deeply in the soil of the islands in the city's immense lagoon.

Everywhere there was weeping and desolation, among elves and humans alike. People gathered together to die in sickhouses, faces covered in sweat, bodies tormented by incurable swellings. The stench of the dead rose everywhere. Some were trying to flee the city and its infestation. Others remained with their suffering loved ones.

Never had I seen such plague. And yet it was amid a city of such remarkable splendor, I found myself numb with sorrow and tantalized by the beauty of the palaces and by the wonder of the San Giustinia Cathedral which bore exquisite testament to the city's ties with Andrastianism. I could do nothing but weep in such a place. It was no time for peering by the torchlight at paintings or statues that were wholly new to me. I had to depart, out of respect for the dying, no matter what I was.

But the second time I came, the plague had been abolished and indeed I wondered the palaces and chantries throughout Antiva, quite taken aback and amazed at its beauty and its warming radiance."

* * *

Yes, it was the gorgeous and glittering city of Antiva, which drew them with its indescribably majestic palaces, their windows open to the contestant breezes of the Amaranthine Ocean, and its dark winding canals. One part of the city, as Armand said, was basically built over the water and there were narrow, banana-looking boats called gondolas which were used to travel the districts.

This was the part of the city at which they arrived, quite beaten and tired. "So where to now?" Varric asked eagerly.

"The inn where I recommended staying is quite pricey, but I do not think that's a problem for you, no?" Armand started. "Well, that's if you do not mind that it is in the same district near a luxurious brothel."

"So it's pretty much exactly like where I live," Hawke said grumpily, remembering how the Red Lantern District was exactly by her house.

"I don't mind at all," Isabela said with a grin. "I think that's where you'll find me for most of this trip."

"So long as you don't needlessly press to take me with you, I approve," Hawke said in amusement. "So Antivans are much the same as Free Marchers… they harbor luxury whorehouses just in the same "sunny side" of the city without as much as a fit of shame."

"Yes it's much like the Rose in Hightown," Armand said with a snort of disgust. "Let us leave then."

Hailing a gondola at the quais they were in, they traveled the canals for hours looking up at the spectacular facades which made up the waterways of la Città di Antiva, as its countrymen called it. Hawke listened to the voices everywhere across the wonderful architecture of the streets and found herself immersed in the scenery. She thanked the gods there was not even the slightest sight of a Templar nearby. Fenris lay back sometimes on his elbow and gazed up at the stars, quite drunken on what he beheld. As his eye would wonder back at the gondola, he'd catch Hawke stealing glimpses of him before she would look away with nonchalance.

When they arrived in the district Armand sought to guide them to, the brothel shimmered with light from inside and curious violin music resounded in the street. "

Oh my," Hawke said grumpily. "I won't get any sleep, will I?"

"The Bone Pit is famous for its loud continuity. The capital itself is known as the  _city that never sleeps,_ " Armand said a bit mockingly.

"The  _what?_ " Hawke asked in terror and everybody looked at him curiously.

"The Bone Pit," Armand repeated. "Oh, because it's the same with the mine back in Kirkwall. Yes, I found that coincidence rather appalling myself."

Hawke sighed and shook her head, "Will wonders never cease."

"That's what I keep saying," Fenris intervened bitterly."I think it's because I often say this that it keeps happening," he smirked and shook his head, "Foolish mistake."

"You're the reason this keeps happening to me?" Hawke asked in a mocking pretense and gestured, "Begone foul creature!"

Fenris lifted his eyebrows in a deliberate unimpressed grimace, "You will soon come to regret what you ask of me."

"I will, won't I?" Hawke said in amusement. "Well, let's go in then." Fenris nodded, "Yes, let's get this over with before I fall asleep." Isabela snorted quickly, "That's what she said."

When they entered, Hawke was filled with a sudden disgust and fascination at the same time. And this was largely because she had fallen in love with this particular "little palazzo" as Armand called it, an inn of great beauty, its façade covered in glistering marble tiles, its arches in the Northern style, and its immense rooms more luxurious than anything she had ever beheld in all her nights and days. The lofty ceilings amazed her. They had known nothing like them in Ferelden, at least not in a private house. And on top of the immense roof was a carefully arranged roof garden from which one could view the sea.

"You sure we can afford this?" Varric asked awkwardly. "Not that I don't  _really_ like it here, but- "

"This is all on me," Hawke quickly said with a smile. "Don't worry about it."

"That's very generous of you," Fenris said with a short frown.

"That's me," Hawke said mockingly. "An endless fountain of joy for the damned ones."

Fenris snorted and shook his head, "Poor you. Queen of the Damned."

"I wouldn't take it that far," Hawke said firmly. "But I like the name, it certainly has a macabre ring to it."

"Don't let it go over your head," Fenris said calmly.

After Hawke generously paid for all their rooms and Varric kept insisting that he should chip in and after many failed but annoying attempts, Hawke finally gave in to his request, they each went to their separate rooms. Hawke told them motherly not to go out without letting her know first, but other than, they were free to do anything they liked until such a time when she chose to basically summon them for whatever mysterious thing she had to do in the city. Armand thanked her and told her he would abuse of her generosity, only so because that was Dorian's wish, until his own business was done.

* * *

**Sunset, Via** **della Libertà**

They went by a sort of restaurant open in the street near where they were staying, by the so called bridge Ponte della Libertà. It was covered by red velvet curtains and the chairs and tables were particularly white and fancy. Men were playing their traditional instruments, flutes, guitars and other ones Hawke couldn't name. The songs were all Antivan and hauntingly beautiful, the words she didn't understand, but they were filled with a sort of love for everything and everyone. The chairs and curtains that drew contour to the territory of the restaurant on the street were filled with perfume and it started raining again. The romantic scenery made Hawke feel like throwing up, to say the least.

Varric abused much of his pocket to buy all the coffee and wine from this place, which wasn't really a bad thing. He gave everyone cigarillos, which they happily lit, except for Armand and Fenris who politely refused.

"So what  _are_ we doing here, really?" Isabela asked in boredom.

Hawke lit her cigarillo nonchalantly and Isabela pressed, "Hawke."

"All in good time," Hawke said confidently, without looking at her. "All in good time."

"That's more vague than Fen's face," Isabela said in annoyance. "Don't worry, FenFen, you're still pretty."

Fenris frowned, "Stop calling me that. My name is Fenris."

"So you keep reminding me," Isabela said nonchalantly. "And so I keep not caring."

"How come I don't get a nickname?" Hawke intervened curiously.

"Well… it's kind of hard to cripple a name which already sounds like it's being spelled backwards," Isabela said in amusement. "I mean Hildegaard… Maker, where do I even start?"

"From the beginning, if it's not too much for your little brain," Hawke chuckled.

"Maybe I can just spell it backwards again? Dra—Draage-"

"Draagedlih," Fenris saved her time.

"Oh Maker my tongue would swirl and suffocate on itself if I pronounce that," Varric said in amusement.

"Stop making fun of my name," Hawke demanded firmly.

"Or better yet, Bianca," Isabela said with a grin and took Hawke by the shoulder. "Dear sweet Bianca, my undying love for you with no sheer equal in this whole blasted world – except for Varric's crossbow."

Hawke rolled her eyes and shoved Isabela's arm away, "My name is Hawke. Deal with it."

"That's also open to a lot of jokes," Varric said in amusement. "Little mockingbird, you."

Fenris laughed softly at how the two rogues tried to mock her with cheesiness.

"Ok, I regret it now. Go back to Fenris's name crippling please," Hawke said desperately.

"No, no," Fenris said quickly with a smirk. "I'd much rather press on making mockery of your three names. Mine is just the one and it's so lonely here, being made the target of all jokes."

"Then maybe you should change it," Hawke said grumpily. "By the way, how's the face-changing going?"

"Much as before," Fenris said nonchalantly, taking a sip of his wine. "Its process quite delayed by my undying compassion of not making you feel like you're the only grotesque figure in this world."

"My, I'm quite taken aback by this  _honest_ act of mercy," Hawke said mockingly. "Your deeds will not go unobserved, Sir."

"I'm sure I can think of many ways for you to thank me," Fenris deliberately implied with an evil grin. He was taken by the wine and forgot about the company they were in. "Very many in fact."

Hawke caught on his subtlety and frowned, "You can go  _thank_ yourself."

 _Ouch,_ Varric thought.  _This is painful. Hawke, what the hell are you doing…_

"So Hawke, how's the cigarillo? I made a good choice, didn't I?" Varric saved it quickly.

"It's quite heavy and a bit too sweet for my taste, but it does the trick," Hawke said with a smile.

Fenris became awfully annoyed at her and grumpily drank his wine in silence. Would it not for their company, he was sure he'd  _thank_ her right there, as resentful and frustrating as she was. Even with her chainmal robes and pants she stubbornly, much like he, clung onto in a part of a city which seemed perfectly safe, her hair up in a ponytail as always - she looked so primitively beautiful and viciously delicious, now that he caught a taste of those wicked lips. Her constant need to put him down wasn't really tiring, as much as now – he admitted – was quite enthralling, because he knew she would soon break. Especially in a place like this, the capital of love. She might not be impressed by such idiocies, he wasn't either, but much here than in Kirkwall, her guard was down. Then he noticed Isabela eyeing him insistently.

"You keep starting at me. Is it my eyes again?" he asked Isabela nonchalantly.

"You're very lanky, for an elf. I like lanky," Isabela replied happily.

"From what I gather, you like a lot of things," Fenris said flatly.

Isabela smiled. "Nonsense. But you can't blame me for going after something I like when I see it."

"I suggest keeping your distance," Fenris said instinctively, quite impressed at himself. He noticed Hawke looking at them as she talked to Varric.

"Now you're just making it more challenging," Isabela said while shaking her head.

In fact, why shouldn't he make use of a stratagem now? The wine made him think dark thoughts and as maddened as he was now, he thought he could try something. However stupid it may seem.

"Do you intend to go after me, then?" Fenris asked with a piercing look.

He didn't know if Isabela caught his stunt, but she replied with a grin, "Will you take off that spiky armor you're wearing?"

"It's been known to happen," Fenris said nonchalantly, subtly looking at Hawke, who got him out of it without even really trying, in the Deep Roads, at his house, in the woods… No, he had to concentrate.

"Then forget it," Isabela said firmly, leaning backwards in her chair with nonchalance.

Fenris hesitated, being tricked by her, but strove to press, "If you indeed want a challenge, it can stay on."

Isabela grinned and raised an eyebrow, "Now we're tal-"

He turned his head quickly at the sound of a chair creaking against the ground. Hawke left the table with her cigarillo still on her and walked away in the street.

"Where's she going?" Isabela asked in confusion.

"Beats me," Varric said with a frown. "She said she'll be right back."

* * *

**A few minutes later, Via di Farfalle (Butterflies Street)**

Hawke sat down on a secluded fountain just at the end of that street, its walls full of green ivy and blue flowers, which were probably the reason why the street was called Butterfly, for they resembled them greatly.

She thought, who would love such a place? A place that managed far greater even than Kirkwall to mask the cruelty and horrors that were taking place at the behest of the Crown, the Crows and other such guilds, if those were even allowed to exist by the latter.

For the color of the evening sky over the piazza that you see when you are first risen? For the domes of the churches beneath the moon? For the color of the canals that only poets and painters could appreciate in the starlight? One should be a wicked and greedy creature to love this place so ignorantly.

And then she was deflecting… The real maddening thought in her head was Fenris so bluntly flirting with Isabela as if she wasn't there. It didn't matter if he was doing it on purpose – she was certain he was doing it on purpose – because even the thought of it made her extremely, mind-breakingly jealous. She lifted her eyebrows and shook her head, remaining impressed by herself for a few seconds, at just how much of an idiot she probably looked. She took a long drag from her cigarillo.  _Oh, Hawke… who would have thought you are the jealous type._

"Dear sweet, badass little Bianca," a delightful voice came from behind and she flinched. Varric was this voice's possessor and he went by the fountain and sat next to her.

She chuckled. "Feeling cheesy tonight are we?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"What can I say, I'm feeling quite emotional," Varric said charmingly. "We're in the capital of love, after all."

"But you called me Bianca," Hawke said with a scowl. "I thought you would never use that name for anyone else. That's what you said, if I recall correctly."

"If you haven't noticed by now, I tend to lie a lot," Varric said with an evil grin. "Plus, compassion is free from my point of view, but respect has to be earned. Calling you Bianca is a testament to that."

"You're scaring me, Varric," Hawke said with raised eyebrows. "Go back to the dirty, badass vocabulary right this instant, I beg you."

"Oh, pshht. Let a man be drunk," Varric said grumpily, then leaned backwards towards the water of the fountain. "Drunk with loooove."

Hawke caught his back so he wouldn't fall. "Maybe a bit  _too_ drunk."

Varric chuckled, "Oh, I earned it. Tenfold."

"Can you count to ten?" Hawke asked warmly as she held him by the shoulders and let him rest against her chest.

Varric raised six fingers consecutively, then grew frustrated and gave up, "Ah, who needs counting when you have the golden tongue of a storyteller and a beautiful woman by your side to save your ass whenever you're in trouble."

"By beautiful woman you mean your Bianca," Hawke said in amusement.

"Okay,  _women_ , sorry," Varric said charmingly. "And sorry for being drunk."

"Like you said, you've earned it," Hawke said happily and stroked his hair. "You look like a honeybear dipped in caramel and joys of all joys."

"And you look like an idiot," Varric said a bit sharply. "What the hell are you doing, Hawke?"

"I'm uh," Hawke said in confusion, "Okay, sorry, I won't stroke your hair any longer. Wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea, Mr. Drunken McFattso."

"No, not that," Varric said angrily. "But you can keep doing that. It feels nice."

"Then what?" Hawke asked in concern.

"You and Broody," Varric said grumpily. "You're making me cry just by looking at you."

"All in good time," Hawke said confidently. "All in good time."

"So you keep saying," Varric said in annoyance. "Look, just promise… just for the sake of me being drunk and not remembering this by morning… I'll say this only once and then I'll firmly deny having ever made such statement," he paused for a second, "Don't hurt my friend."

Hawke lifted her eyebrows and widened her eyes, then sighed and looked at the piazza in the distance. "I promise I will not."

"Good," Varric said while swaying his head in dizziness. "Of course, I had the same talk with him. So my work here is  _done._ I won't press on it any longer."

"You did  _what_?" Hawke asked in terror and pushed him away from her chest.

Varric chuckled warmly, "I'm just shitting you." He went back to lean on her. "You should've seen the look on your face."

"Please don't interfere in this, as much as I know it's a compulsion of yours I can't cure," Hawke said pleadingly. "I need to do this on my own."

"I know," Varric said sweetly. "Might I suggest though to keep it in your pants for the time being. Nothing good ever happens from starting something on a trip. That is… if you haven't already."

Hawke swallowed heavily and said, "No, not exactly."

"So you  _did_ start something," Varric said drunkenly. "And you haven't told  _me._  I'm hurt, Hawke."

"You won't remember this anyway," Hawke said with an evil grin. "So I'm safe."

"You're such a bitch," Varric said warmly.

"It's hard to do anything when you're around," Hawke said with a double meaning, then tickled Varric ruthlessly, "How can I do anything when I can't keep my hands off you, you big drunken honeybear."

"Aw, I'm moved," Varric said sweetly in-between laughing. "But I'm spoken for."

"Yeah," Hawke said and rolled her eyes. "So you keep saying."

Varric chuckled and sighed, looking in the distance, "Don't cry, Hawke. You'll always be my secret mistress."

Hawke snorted and burst into laughter, "My, you're such a gentlemen."

"I'm a  _perfect_ gentleman," Varric said confidently, "in public."

"Oh my," Hawke said with lifted eyebrows, then looked in the distance too. "Thanks, by the way. For coming after me and sweetly trying to cheer me up."

"That's what I'm here for," Varric said charmingly. "And now you can express your gratitude by walking me back to the restaurant. In one piece, if it's not too much to ask."

"I got your back, Tethras," Hawke said confidently and rose from the fountain, taking Varric by the hand and dragging him up.

* * *

**A few hours later**

Everyone went to sleep for all she knew, but she kept fretting and scowling in her sheets and grew tired of counting sheep. She was very drunk at that point. She went out of the building and sat on the edge of a great fountain nearby. The night was deeply purple and the streets were still roaming with people.

"I really need a break," she said out loud bitterly, looking down and holding onto her knees.

After a few moments, she heard Fenris coming by the fountain. "There you are," he said with a controlled tone as not to express his concern, "You know you're a hypocrite, I hope?"

"I'm the leader, I can go out whenever I please," Hawke said nonchalantly.

"My, and such a modest leader we have," Fenris said mockingly. He hesitated to ask her politely to sit down, but she gestured towards the edge for him to join her.

"You chose me, it's your problem, not mine," Hawke said confidently, but pertaining to different meanings on the way.

"Yes, indeed, why did I choose you?" Fenris asked himself out loud, without fear for her response, as he was deeply drunk himself.

"You asked for this, did you not?" Hawke responded, her voice cool, brushing her arm in defense. She was trembling. How deeply she … and how she didn't want him to know.

"Oh, yes," Fenris responded in a small, calm voice, "Indeed I did ask for this, but then before how many a taste of you, was it?" He paused, then continued. "You chose this much the same." Hawke looked down and flinched in defense. "Why did you choose me for those kisses, hm?"

"Because I wanted to," she said without further ado.

Fenris shook his head. "There's more to it."

"Then be my teacher," Hawke said angrily, looking at him.

Fenris sighed, "There's a bitter cold in me," he said, "a cold which comes from a distant land. And nothing really makes it warm. Even Kirkwall did not make it warm. You knew of this cold. You tried a thousand times to melt it, and transform it into something more brilliant, but you only think you never succeeded," he said honestly, then looked at her with a piercing look. She looked sorrowful and breathed hard. He continued while firmly looking away, "And then one day when I came near death – no was, in fact, dying – you counted upon that cold to give me stamina for fighting it," he said nostalgically, remembering the healing in the Deep Roads.

Hawke nodded and looked away, but Fenris put a hand on her shoulder. "Look at me, please," he said calmly. "Isn't it so?" His face was serene.

"Yes," she said, "it is so."

"And you made use of the powers you despised to help me. Without much further question, you helped me all over again in many other ways once you came back," he said calmly, remembering everything she did for him, starting with her concern for the mess in his mansion to teaching him to read and write.

Hawke nodded again in silence, striving so stubbornly not to look at him.

Fenris pressed his lips and squeezed her shoulder gently. "Why do you shrink from me when I ask this question?" Fenris pressed calmly.

"Fenris…" she said, speaking firmly, "Is this a curse, what I am?"

"No," Fenris answered quickly, much to her honest surprise.

"Think on it before you answer," Hawke pressed bitterly. "It is a curse."

"No," he said again.

"Will wonders never cease," Hawke said in bitter amusement. "You think of me higher than myself for what I am, and you of all people."

"I'm full of surprises, am I not?" Fenris said with an amused grin. "Maybe it is high time that I be your teacher now."

Hawke lifted her eyebrows in mockery, "Sure, have at it. I'm getting tired of my position already. It requires so much mastery over one's patience."

"I've noticed," Fenris said firmly.

"Do you Fenris? Have patience, I mean," Hawke asked honestly, sighing to no end.

Fenris looked at her sorrowfully, for the struggles in her mind proved to be much greater than he had thought. He said with a deep and firm voice, "For you, I will find the patience."

Hawke inhaled deeply and finally looked at him, "Then cease with your questions. Don't seek to anger me or embitter me further."

Fenris chuckled warmly, "I will do so, if you cease with pushing me away. Let me teach you what I have to teach."

Hawke had lost her little battle and sighed angrily at him, looking more like a child than she usually did. She curled her legs beneath her, sitting there motionless on the edge of the fountain, with Fenris still holding on her shoulder with no fear for her predictable resistances.

"Teach away then," she said in annoyance.

"Not tonight," Fenris said calmly with a warm, short smile. He dragged her closer to him and forced her to rest her head on his chest. She sought to resist instinctively, but gave in when Fenris brushed the hair on top of her head gently. "Tonight I'll just steal you away and savor this moment."


	27. Death, Lament And Traitor's Tour-De-Force

I

WANT to start with the beginning, but I- I CAN'T.

H. B. Hawke here and I have a story to tell you of what happened to me.

Yes, yes, I know, I'm barging in, but I'm deeply besotted again and I can't help it! The writer of this story thinks too highly of me and I have to intervene. I'm too much in a dark frame of mind right now and I have to press that I'm but a vagabond mage roaming the earth covered in so much dust of my eternal stoicism in public, Templars hardly notice me anymore.

I strive for good far and wide, but there's more to it to the tale than you think. My name is once again thirst, baby and I must have you! All in good time, Fenris. I did not forget about you in this tale.

Not bad, you might think, but I loathe it. Without doubt, I was grieving for something I did not even know I had lost – maybe my old self in Lothering? I cannot tell. The senseless little brat queen from Lothering, now a newly born revenant once determined to be good at being bad if that was her predicament, much to be contradictory in itself.

I'm not a pragmatist, mind you. I have a keen and merciless conscience, so cruel that it is in fact, much too kind and patient sometimes. But I'm still bad to the bone. Ah, I could have been a nice girl. Maybe at times I am. But always, I've been a woman of action. Grief is a waste, angers renders one much too weak right on the verge of being swallowed by the flame, and so does and is fear. And action is what you will get here, as soon as I get through this introduction.

Alas, I have to do things my own way. And we will get to the beginning – if that isn't contradiction in terms – I promise you. I'll take care of you this chapter until the author figures out I'm ruthlessly and greedily stealing you away from her and her fine words that have no shame in penetrating others' thoughts and visions to give you and me an explanation for what has been happening.

Mages don't really like others of their kind, though their need for such companions is desperate.

… Where was I going with this? Ah, yes, the beginning.

Nah… I'm a fatalist right now, I'm much too energized and deeply deranged to bits to acquiesce to your request.

I will start with THE END.

And they lived happily ever after, once they fled Kirkwall.

No, that's not the right end… wait. Give me a second. GIVE ME. A. SECOND.

Oh right, so I woke up in this brothel…

"Tonight I'll just steal you away and savor this moment."

No, this wasn't how it happened. What? No. This was after the sudden tragedy that occurred a day before. My timing was wrong? Did I dream all of it? This must be something else. My head… oh, for all the wine in the world, this is painful. Flashes, just so many flashes, and my head bumping into some pillow, eyes tightly shut then opening again to be brutally smashed by the candle lights.

Wait… something, something about an Antivan elf. Not Armand. No, an Antivan human. Or both.

Oh, the brutal light of nightly dawn, it refreshed my sight and memory. A young, boyish little elf utterly intoxicated with my delightful drunken company and the many wonders of me which I did not allow him. Naturally, he found me a beautiful woman. Didn't everyone? I jest, of course. He was not all that ugly himself. Dark-skinned and green-eyed, with blonde to almost glisteningly white soft hair. It reminded me of someone, I wonder who. Even his lanky arms had a certain prettiness to them, especially given his outrageous hair.

No… he didn't really look like him. But I figured in my black out I sought out some resembling dollface much less difficult and overwhelming than Fenris, who was in my thoughts always, even now, as I struggled to remember how I got here. I wondered where he was and how in the Void he did not come to find me.

WHAT happened?

It was not all bad. I'm certain we didn't do anything. I remember now; he recited poems to me in Antivan with great charm. After an hour or two of only pretending to be a vanquishing brute, he had let on that he wanted to take me. I politely refused in my drunkenness and told him to keep his distance on the edge of the bed.

"Why not?" the white-haired beautiful elf repeated, with such boyish drive for adventure.

"Because I am quite spoken for, sadly," I said in amusement, thinking just how loyal I remained even in my black out, as it seems.

"Nonsense," he pressed. "You are nobody's."

"But you want me to be yours, do you not?" I played nonchalantly, placing my hands under my head with great ease.

"Does he want you to be wholly his as I do now?" he demanded sharply.

"The fuck should I know," I said and chuckled.

"So he hasn't fucked you," he said perceptively.

"Now, wouldn't you like to know," I mocked him with pleasure for the absolute. I didn't fear him.

"I would," he said firmly. "Much so that I would like to just listen, if that is all you allow of me."

"Oh, it is a tale far heavier than your limited understanding," I said with delight. "I would much rather talk about you."

From time to time, he implored me to confess who I really was and where he might find me afterwards, which of course, I wouldn't.

I stayed there with him at a distance, talking about the mysteries of the lands in which I set foot on and reading some Antivan poetry to him of which I did not understand much except for cullo which sounded like ass and apassionata which was passionate. Passionate ass? There's not enough words in the world of such cosmic proportions as to describe how utterly ridiculous a scene I found myself in…

He taught me a great deal of rank gutter-tramp Antivan, and he wanted to take me home, wherever that was. He had to regain his wits, he said; he was much too delighted with the mystery I had imposed on him. He could not conceive of such limitation on my part – that I came there and did not want to bed him. For that and other things I had impressed him with, he could not now live without me, he said. He would keep me in Antiva in a splendid house his assassin cousin had, a present from the former Antivan prince as courtesy for helping him be put first in line for the throne. If I was the daughter of some formidable nobleman, I should confess it, and this "obstacle" would be "dealt with". Did I hate my Father, perchance? No… my Father was dead.

His was a scoundrel. All the Crows were scoundrels and had been since the first day they set up shop in Antiva and practically took over the Crown itself. He would flee Antiva with me this very night if I so wished.

"You sound as if you don't know Antiva City and her noblemen," I said kindly, with a drunken smile. "Think on all this. You'll be cut to pieces for giving it a try."

I now perceived that he was fairly young. Since all older men seemed old to me, I had not thought about it before. He couldn't have been more than twenty- something. He was also mad.

He leapt on the bed impulsively, his messy light hair flying, and pulled his dagger, a formidable Antivan stiletto, and stared down into my upturned face.

"I'll kill for you," he said confidently and in a foolish fit of pride, in the Antivan accent. Then he drove the dagger into the pillow and the feathers flew out of it. "I'll kill you if I have to." The weathers went up into his face, and mine alike, but I kept my look unyieldingly unperturbed.

"And then you'll have what?" I asked confidently with a giant grin.

There was a creaking behind him. I was fairly certain someone was at the window, beyond the bolted wooden shutters, even though we were three stories above. I told him so. He believed me.

"I come from a family of murderous beasts," I lied and grinned viciously. "They'll follow you to the ends of the Dark City itself if you think of taking me out of there – they'll dismantle your whorehouse stone by stone, chop you in half and cut out your eyes, your tongue and your private parts, wrap them in velvet and send them to your Guild Master," I said while fiercely enjoying his sudden look of terror across his face. Then my voice became even more commanding, "Now calm down."

"Oh, you bright, saucy little demon," he said, "you look like a bloody angel and hold forth like a tavern knave in that sweet crooning cocky voice."

"That's me," I said smiling.

I got up and fixed my messy clothes hastily, warning him not to assault me just yet. Then when he let his guard down, I winked at him playfully and quickly made for the door.

He hovered in the bed, his dagger still tightly clutched in his hand, the feathers having settled on his white-colored head on his shoulders and his eyelashes. He looked truly dangerous.

I lost count of the days that had passed. I couldn't quite remember.

I only remembered this and Fenris's voice calmly declaring just how he would abuse of my availability to savor the moment I yielded to him and rested my head on his chest. But no, that wasn't it. It didn't happen that way.

No, it didn't happen that night. There was a giant gap in-between the first night in Antiva and that one haunting memory, and after that another huge gap, which led to me waking up in this whorehouse. The Bone Pit, I saw the sign written in emerald calligraphic letters by the main entrance. Perhaps I had mistaken it for the inn we were staying in, then the white-haired elf ran into me and … something extremely STUPID that was part of my DOOFUS mind made me go with him. Hm… truly interesting, that I did not do anything.

But where were the others? No… concentrate. I can't. I had to get out of there.

It was dark and just a little cold. The curfew had come down. Of course the Antivan cold of night seemed childishly mild to me after the snowy lands of the south, where I'd been born, but it was nevertheless an oppressive and damp air, and though cleansing breezes purified the city, it was inhospitable and unnaturally quiet. The illimitable sky vanished in thick mists. The very stones gave forth the chill as if they were blocks of ice.

Well, maybe it's the drunken shivers, I thought.

On a water stairs, I sat, not caring that it was brutally wet and I burst into silent growls. What had I learned from all this if there's no memory to bind it with, as to make sense of it all?

I felt rather sophisticated for once, like a stupid fucking princess fleeing the castle and trying to make sense of life. Bah, such idiocy. I desired no company, but I had no warmth from it, no real warmth and it seemed my loneliness now was worse than guilt, or fear, or the feeling of being damned.

Indeed it seemed to replace the old feeling. I feared it, being utterly alone. For once, I did admit it. As I sat there looking up at the tiny margin of this black heaven, at the few stars that drifted over the roofs of the buildings, I sensed how utterly terrible it would be to lose both Fenris, my friends, and my guilt simultaneously. To be cast out and tumbling through the world with nothing to defend, nor to be defended by, as I annoyingly had to admit. Nobody to love or damn you. That was it.

And then the memories struck me back like a cannon ball straight in the face. Oh, so many memories…

Two or three days ago,

Hawke strolled through the Piazza di Azzuro, right next to the famous San Giustinia Cathedral, which bore testament to Andraste's dearest friend in childhood who stood by her side each step of the way in her Exalted Marches.

There was one, vast painting over a grand façade, called The Procession of The Magi. It was probably the only painting in the world of Andrastianism that depicted mages from the Imperium repenting and joining Andraste's cause against their own kind. Now it was a marvelous painting, full of rampant detail. Not only was the Procession itself enormous, if not actually never ending, but the landscape behind it was wondrous, filled with towns and mountains, with men hunting and animals running, with beautifully realized castles and delicately shaped trees. The faces shimmering with honesty and drive for liberty, such strive to strive, she had never seen drawn with a brush before.

"Such a painting surely brings testament to how great some mages were," she said in amazement, looking up and feeling like she would fall down.

"Sadly, we may never know such mages in our times anymore," Fenris replied flatly.

"Is that what I am to you? A poor old weakling? An excuse of a mage? Really, truly?" Hawke asked him with honest, but masked desperation.

"You are not weak," Fenris said firmly. "I don't know if you are great, though. That remains to be seen."

"Well… I… Fine, you take what you can get, and it's more than enough coming from you, I think," Hawke said with a short smile.

"I thought we were past your terrible misconception of me thinking lowly of you," Fenris said with a short frown.

"We are… it's just," Hawke said and looked up at the grand painting on the monument again. "Andraste might not have thought so. At least, her Chant of Light which was probably tempered with."

Fenris came next to her and gazed up at the painting, then said, "It doesn't matter. What Andraste did long ago has been undone."

"That's not my point," Hawke pressed insistently. "My point is –"

"I know what you strive to press on, but I'm not the one to give you a proper answer," Fenris confessed knightly.

"Nor does anyone else," Hawke said bitterly. "Only the so called Maker could account for this."

"You think the Maker doesn't resent you as much as he resents us all?" Fenris said nonchalantly. "It is much a worldly injustice towards mages as with any other race and man alike."

"Worldly injustice," Hawke repeated in amusement and shook her head. "I wonder – is not that people strive for this injustice, rather than unhinge it, with the presumption of complete non-responsibility, of comfort and ignorance? An attempt has been made foolishly well in the same direction on the basis of the opposite doctrine of full responsibility and guilt of every man. But it still pressed on the guilt of mages more than any other. Just for the sake of it."

"What do you mean?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"It was the founder of Andrastianism who wished to abolish worldly injustice and banish judgement and punishment from the world, no? For she understood all guilt as 'sin' – that is, an outrage against the Maker, and not against the world. In fact, he looks at it so, not Andraste."

Fenris looked at her in awe of her remarks and listened carefully, for she continued, "On the other hand, he considered pretty much every man in a broad sense, and almost in every sense, a sinner. The guilty, however, are not to be the judges of their peers – so his rules of equity decided, no?"

"That would be the logic of it, but it is not what is happening in the world, as you can see," Fenris said flatly.

"Exactly my point," Hawke said confidently. "Thus al dispensers of worldly injustice were in His eyes as culpable as those they condemned, and their air of guiltlessness appeared to Him hypocritical and pharisaical. He would have no mercy even of the most honourable, kind-hearted soul. Moreover, He looked to the motives and not the results of the actions, and thought that only one was keen-sighted enough to give a verdict on motives – Himself or, as he expressed it, the one and only God. Who did so in abandoning us. What a fucking douchebag."

Fenris couldn't help but burst into laughter at her finishing statement.

"Oh, yeah, that's how I usually close my speeches," Hawke said with a smile. "Want me to do my tribute to the Maker?"

Fenris looked around with a raised eyebrow, to see if anyone was near enough to be appalled by Hawke starting to sing right in the middle of the piazza, but decided he was curious enough to let her go, "Proceed."

She raised a mocking hand to the sky, "Ho, ho, ho, you big dork. Thanks for nothing, big fucking good-for-nothing pussy!" She heard Fenris laugh again softly at her blunt and cocky statement.

**– Gap –**

She was in the Fade, dreaming about a time when she and her father went into the Fade together, exploring a memory of his. She felt like she was making a much too complex inception for her to grasp, which made her lose consciousness and awareness. He showed her a memory of his from when he was in Antiva City, within the Serene Gardens of the San Giustinia Cathedral, erected in the name of Justinia, the Tevinter slave and Andraste's closest friend who remained by her side as a disciple in the war against the Imperium.

He wanted to show her something, but didn't right away. He remained in a meditative state as they sat on the moist grass of the square cloister.

"Father, do we serve Him?" Hawke pressed, running out of patience. "I know you condemn the Chantry and the ravings of some Andrastians, but do you mean to lead me to the same god they do?"

"That's just it, my love, I do," Malcolm said softly, "even though you might not believe me for the pagan I seem to appear, but I do. I find the Maker in the flesh, in the blood and especially in our magic. I find it no accident that the mysterious Andraste resides forever in a pouch of magical ashes that are meant to cure any illness."

"But we don't know if that's true," she contradicted. "It might all just be a big sodding bunch of hogwash."

"I think it's true," he said firmly. "But we're digressing."

"Oh, now you don't want to digress? How perfectly contradictory and uncharacteristic of you, lest that's just another diversion in itself."

"You don't think He exists? Or that Andraste was a saviour?" Malcom asked her calmly.

She didn't answer. She had renounced the idea of a Maker for as long as she could remember. A relentless, unforgiving god who abandoned them in their darkest times and sent even more anguish and havoc onto the earth just because of people believing in other gods and some stupid mages who supposedly woke him up and disturbed his peace in his Golden City. No, if that was what created them, she wouldn't want to hear of it.

"I stumble with my conceptions," she confessed.

"We all stumble, pup, and so do all those who enter history. The concept of a great Being stumbles down the centuries; His words and those principles attributed to Him do tumble after Him; and so Andraste is snatched up in His wandering by the preaching puritan on one side, the muddy starving hermit on the other. But that's not important. Nothing about it is."

"Then why discuss it? To fill these moments with empty talk?" she demanded in annoyance.

Malcolm laughed softly, "Come then. I've had about enough of contemplating."

Hawke rolled her eyes, "You don't say."

"Come now, we'll slip into the dormitories. There is enough light to see the paintings."

"Paintings?" she asked in surprise. "You mean that Gustavo mage guy you kept muttering about?"

"That's the one," Malcolm smiled.

"You mean he painted the dormitories where sisters go to sleep? A mage?"

"Yes," he said and led her through a wide stone corridor and made a door spring open.

They swayed through the sleeping bodies and Hawke was more scrutinizing of them than the walls she was supposed to look at.

"Don't look at her face," Malcolm said firmly. "If you do you'll see the troubled dreams she suffers. I want you to look at the wall."

Hawke looked at the paintings on the wall and narrowed her eyes. She gazed upon the elegant rendering of Andraste in deep meditation in a garden. The flattened figure resembled very much the familiar, harsher style of Ferelden painting, yet the face was softened with genuine and touching emotion. It seemed a kindness infused in her, condemned to be betrayed by one of her own, no other than her husband, Maferath. Her Disciples looked on her with the same powerful emotion. Even the Tevinter soldier, in his heavy platemail, was painted with full might and feeling, who was reaching out for her to take her into their custody.

She was tunnelled, transfixed, to say the least, by this seeming innocence that infused every figure, this undeniable kindness and purity. The painter did his part thoroughly in highlighting this, apart from the terrible tragedy that was actually happening in the picture.

Malcolm walked away with her into another room which depicted Andraste before she had been taken by the Tevinters. She was praying to the Maker for strength. Again, she was reminded of the Ferelden paintings of her, yet there shone again the Antivan warmth, the unmistakable Antivan love of the humanity of all included. Even for the elves, which were there in the painting, sleeping peacefully by Andraste's side with Shartan as their leader.

Andraste apparently meant "in the name of victory". Present Hawke in the Fade, reliving the memory of the younger Hawke reliving Malcolm's memory… remembered what Shartan wrote in his book as she read it to Fenris. "Let us, therefore, go against the Tevinters, trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule over dogs and wolves." Apparently, the ancient elves had an act of divination of sorts, in which they let a hare go loose and whichever direction it went, it predicted the way of the future, good or bad. Shartan let the hare go loose and it ran on what they considered the auspicious side, the whole multitude of his people and Andraste's shouted with joy and Shartan, raising his hand towards Andraste, said : "I thank you, Andraste, and call upon you as equal being to being from the same blood and soul, … I beg you for victory and preservation of liberty."

They went from room to room, traveling backwards and forwards through the life of Andraste. The 13 nights of one-tear shedding of Andraste in her despair for the fate of her fellow slaves and her husband, Maferath, gathering the tears in a vial. The first time she had her dream in which the Maker showed Himself to her. The time she sang and the Maker, enchanted by her voice, invited her at His side, but she instead encouraged Him to return to humanity and forgive them, compelling her fellow Alamarri and the elven slaves to fight against the magisters of the Imperium. One painting depicted her in the centre, gripped from each side in a very dark and creepy way by two positively hideous-looking magisters, and she, in turn, looking austere and peaceful, accepting of her fate.

They came by the painting that depicted Archon Hessarian putting the sword through Andraste's heart as he saw the errors of his ways and felt mercy at the sight of her anguish in her immolation, being burned at the stake. The sword was now a symbol of mercy in Andrastian lore and the Archon was the first to be converted to following the Chant of Light. Of course, a lot of people thought that Archon's repentance was just a cunning move to ensure his stay on the throne in the image of a wise, enlightening being driven by divine mercy. But then again there were a lot of wild tales, especially the one about Andraste being a very powerful mage whose intentions were more political than idealistic. And even if she was one… it didn't make a difference. She wasn't accusing magic, but magisters and people misinterpreted her entirely.

Although what transfixed Hawke was her anguish while being burned at the stake. How thoughtful in their distress were Hesarrian and Andraste's Disciples, Shartan tormented by despair. One tale suspected he was actually her lover and that's partly the reason why Maferath found it easier to betray her to the Imperium.

Hawke felt a stronger connection now with the tale and even with the quiet incandescent splendour of this Antivan painter who graced those walls. When they reached their last painting, they travelled through the whirls of the Fade and they were shoved back into reality. Her Father went by the desk and started to write something quickly.

Hawke shivered as she felt the physical world again, in that dark room in the abandoned house, and pressed, "What did he try to do through these paintings? Subtly bequeath to his brethren? Magnificient, grand pictures to put them in mind with Andraste's suffering?

Malcom wrote several lines before he resumed.

"The painter never scorned to delight our eyes, to fill your vision with all the colours the Maker had bestowed upon our eyes, for you are given two eyes, pup, and not to be…. Not to be shut up in the dark. You understand?"

She reflected for a long time. To know these things theoretically was one thing, but to have passed through the hushed and sleeping rooms of the Chantry, to have seen her Father's principles there, emblazoned by that painter, a mage himself – this was something else. Even if it was just the Fade.

"It is a glorious time, this," Malcolm said softly while still writing. "Even in all this tragedy that's coming upon us. That which was good among the ancients is now going to be rediscovered and given a new form. Things will change, for worse at first, but for the better in time. What Andraste did long ago seems to have been undone, but it is not late yet for another to come and make peace."

Hawke scowled at his words, and he looked up at her and gave her a warm smile, "You ask me if Andraste is a saint, our Saviour? I say, pup, that she can be, for she never taught anything herself but love, and so did her Disciples afterwards, Hesarrian taught us mercy, whether they know it or not, have led us to believe…"

She waited on him to finish his sentence, but he kept writing and contemplating himself. The heavy candelabra behind him, with its ten thick melting candles, lit her Father's face with that passion of his to know the truth but be cautious in finding it. He spent years writing, questioning, laughing and making jokes all the while and for a good part of it… being much too prudent for Hawke's taste.

"If Andraste is our Saviour," he continued, returning to his point, returning them both to his lesson, "then what a beautiful miracle it is, this Andrastian mystery – ." His eyes fell into deep realization. "That a poor, forsaken slave convinced nations to rise up and fight against a whole and vast, dangerous empire and she actually took the whole south of it. She convinced a Deity to join her fight. Or simply watch, I don't quite know, myself."

He looked up and scowled, "Only mark forever the lies they tell in Her name and His and the deeds they do."

Hawke sat in silence and almost burst into tears. Malcolm watch her quietly, respecting her perhaps, or only collecting his thoughts. Then he dipped his pen again and wrote for a long time.

"I set out to show you things and it's never as I plan," her Father finally said. "I wanted you tonight to see the dangers of going to deep into the Fade, how we can travel to other places and that this slipping in and out so easily is a deception of which we must beware, for the Fade is not the perfect spitting image of our reality. But look, how differently it has all gone."

Hawke didn't answer him.  
"I wanted you," he said softly and smiled, "to be a little afraid."

"Father," Hawke said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, "you can count on me to be properly frightened when the time comes. I'll have this power, I know it. I can feel it now. And for now, I think it's splendid, and because of it, this power, one dark thought falls over my heart."

"What is that thought?" he asked in the kindest way. "You know your angelic face is no more fit for sad tings than those faces painted by Gustavo. What's this shadow I see, your dark thought?"

"Take me back," she said firmly, "with your power, take me back to the Fade. We can travel through the whole of Thedas on which you set foot. Take me to the Imperium where you've been, that cruel land that has become a purgatory in my imagination. I want to understand - " she said but stopped, for she didn't know exactly what she wanted to understand. These lessons, this whole quest for understanding magic… it was too much for her young, brave, but bold and impatient little brain.

He was slow in giving her an answer. Morning was coming and they had to prepare themselves , wake the others up and leave the place where they were stationed, for their stay was too long and dangerous. They could see through the window the distant, already paling waters of the Amaranthine Ocean, twinkling under the moon and stars, beyond the familiar red forests of Ferelden scenery. Tiny lights flickered on the distant islands. The wind was mild and full of salt and freshness, and a particular deliciousness that comes only when one has lost all fear for the sea.

"Your request is brave, but reckless, pup," Malcolm said with a concerned, half-disapproving voice.

"Have you travelled so far before?"

"In miles, in actual physical space, and partly in the Fade yes, many times," he said. "But in another's quest for understanding? No, never so far."

And she never got to hold him for this request. It was too late, for he perished before she could remind him.

**– Gap –**

Back in her room, she sighed heavily and chose the Lamentation of Andraste as inspiration for a painting. She had quickly bought new tools and was eager to try them. It had been… how long? Years and years, since she painted. She made her Andraste as tender and vulnerable as she could conceivably do, but much with a strong emotional resistance in her figure, unyielding and staying true to her predicament. Pagan that she was, she didn't know who was supposed to be there! And so she created an immense and varied crowd of weeping humans and elves to lament the dead Andraste, and angels in the sky torn with anguish much like the spirits of compassion painted by that mage, Gustavo, whose work she had seen in the Fade.

She realized something. She was free. She could paint what she wanted. She could be what she wanted. The knight in shining armor she strove so much to be as a child. Nobody was going to be the wiser! But then again, she thought, perhaps that was not entirely true.

**– Gap –**

A few hours later, Fenris walked into her room with curious distress on his face. It was as if she'd never seen him before, so great was his impression of her, so soft and compelling his voice, saying "Am I disturbing?", so radiant his handsome face and his tired eyes. It was an agony and also an immeasurable consolation to be near him, that he would still come to her.

"Yes," Hawke said firmly. "Unless you wish to sit for me as I paint?"

Fenris frowned, only realizing now she was really using the easel.

"I…" he hesitated in a deep voice.

"It won't bite," she said with a warm smile. "Much."

"Very well," he said knightly. "How do you wish me to pose?"

"Hm, hmmm," she played childishly. "Would naked with a rose between your teeth be too much?"

"Far too much for the first attempt at painting me, certainly," Fenris said with a sensual grin.

"Oh, so it is bound to happen," Hawke said confidently. "Good to know."

"I seem to be full of suprises," Fenris said grumpily. "Sitting down would make up for a good start, I suspect."

"Very much so," she said happily, grabbing the cold colour palette.

He was irresistible to her, now that she put the brush on the canvas and effortlessly, as if not even needing to look at him, shaped every little detail of his tropically tan skin, his messy white hair, like that of a majestic little brat prince rising up in the morning from his slumber, and those green ravishing eyes masked with complete nonchalance, but still leaking piercing thoughts about her as he watched her paint. That usual regal figure about him in his Tevinter armor.

Ah, such weakness she had and how much she wanted to- But what could she do? What could I do? Claim him and accept his loyalty to me just so that he would rapidly find it overwhelming and run away from me? I would not survive that. I couldn't allow it.

– Gap –

NO. NO GAP. I remember now, shush! SHUSH.

Well, still some big gap, for what I remember was this:

Somehow, as I told him I was finishing up his portrait, I saw him staring, beastlike, from his chair, as if some ravener had come into him and banished all his civilized faculties and left him, thus, hungry, with glazed eyes and a ferocious grin finding its myriad little shapes over the silky margin of his lips.

Then, Fenris grabbing me by the arm and leaning lower with his dark eyes to steal a kiss away from me again as I was sitting on my chair in front of the canvas. He was impressed with my work of him. He wanted to lift me in both hand, cluthing my arms ever so gently, tucking his face against my neck. And I was about to subdue myself to his demanding wish for us to be close, for my weakness grew stronger and so did my lack of reason, as I spent so many a minutes deeply immersed into depicting him in all his glory. Until a bang came upon the floor.

A figure burst with haste into the room.

Not for a single second did I not know him. He was unchanged, just as I was unchanged, and he had not paid attention to the fashion of these times, any more than he had paid attention to the commoner fashion of times in Ferelden.

He looked dreadful, in fact in a ragged leather jerkin and leggings with holes in them and his boots were tied with rope. His hair was dirty and tangled, but his face wore an amazingly pleasant expression, and when he saw me he came at once to me and embraced me.

"You're really here," he said in a low voice, as though we had to whisper under my own roof. He still had our harsh Ferelden accent. "I heard of it but I didn't want to believe it. Oh, I'm so glad to see you. I'm so glad you're still…"

"Alive? … And well?" I said in amusement. "No I wouldn't really stick a hand in the flame for the latter."

"Oh, you put it far better than I could," he answered, sickly panting to no end. "But let me say it again, I'm so happy to see you, happy to hear your voice."

"Danny, always the astonished one," I said mockingly, moving him gently away towards the light of the candles. I laughed softly, "You look like a tramp."

"And you look like a majestic queen," Daniel said in amazement, taking a step backward to catch a better glimpse of me. "Finally got to be the knight in shining, well, dark armor."

"Not quite, lest for the appearance of it," I said in self-mockery.

I almost forgot Fenris was there watching. I sensed a sudden and violent jealousy in him. But nothing changed in his face. Don't trust him. That's what his soul said to me. And I knew somewhere deep in his mind he wished that Daniel didn't interrupt our little moment, that he would else just leave now, and we could have the shadowy bed, with its concealing velvet curtains, to ourselves. There was something stubborn in him, something directed entirely towards me. Perhaps constant concern? And how it tempted me, how it drew from me the most complete devotion.

But I had to get back to my new visitor. No, first, introductions were in order.

"Oh, where are my manners?" I said innocently, scratching my head. "Fenris – Daniel, Daniel – Fenris. Danny and I lived not far away from each other in Lothering. I trained with his brother and Carver-"

"While I had to sit and suffer every little annoying remark of your Father whenever I didn't get a spell right, Maker rest his soul," Daniel said in amusement, but finished in honest grief.

I saw a sudden lift to Fenris's eyebrows, knowing now with Daniel's curiously rapid declaration, that he was a mage.

"Forgive me, I have to sit down," Daniel said sickly and coughed. "I'm not in my best shape."

"So something is up with you," I said in anger. "I knew I had to come sooner."

"There was no need," he said honestly. "But I thank you that you did. I really wished I could see your face again before I-"

"Before you what?" I asked in terror, being almost certain of his next words.

"Before I die," he confessed humbly while looking down and panting.

"How did you find me?" I deflected, because I needed the truth to sink in.

He smiled. "There are not enough of your red X's in Antiva that you left for me to find you."

I lashed out, I couldn't bare it. I went by the bed and grabbed him by the collar. "If I hadn't run into you in Perivantium, would you even care to find me before you did as you so claim, die? Would you have told me in your next letter anything about it? Or did I have to hear it from your mother or from no one?" I shouted desperately.

"Mother is no more," he said bitterly. "She's with Father and Brother now."

I spat on the ground. "And you wouldn't have the courtesy to let me know when you joined them too?"

"Little Hawke, always so impulsive and driven," he said warmly, shaking his head.

"I can't even look at you right now," I said viciously and turned my back.

Fenris was watching us in complete confusion, so I pressed to explain, "We got separated during the Blight. His father died during the war and his brother disappeared or perished for all we know, a few years before that. It was only him and his mother, and I couldn't manage to keep them close with us."

"It wasn't your fault," Daniel said from behind in-between coughing. "I was stubborn not to listen to you."

"Great," I said in annoyance. "For once, you don't blame me for something. Good that you're trying to make amends on your deathbed."

"I am, in fact," he said. "Not so much as to really succeed though, for your anger with me might get in the way."

"You don't say," I hissed bitterly and crossed my arms.

But I couldn't fool myself, I was in pain masked by blind anger. That I finally saw him again, my friend, and he would just soon come to an end. His letter to me was very vague in this, but for all his style of deflecting, I knew it all too well. That's the reason I came to Antiva, first of all. I knew something was about.

And now I wished I hadn't known. I did wish to know it, but I could scarcely bring himself to accept the truth. What happened to Danny, to his family, to me in all the years back in Lothering, followed then by my journey to Kirkwall, it was all part and parcel of my life now.

There is nothing to do but cross the Bridge of Sighs in my life, the long dark bridge spanning what seemed like centuries of my tortured existence which connected me to this very moment. That my time in this passage I will not bring myself to remember any longer – it was dead and gone. And now he would be too.

I wish I had escaped this fate – of people making a tradition of dying on me every few years. I wished that Daniel had escaped what happened to him, everything that happened to him. It was plain now though, that I had survived our separation with far greater insight and strength than he survived it. But then he was already maybe even minutes away from dying at my feet, so old and wise he seemed though we were the same age, and I simply seemed like a child.

"What's happening to you? How much time," I almost whispered with grief.

"Soon enough," he said sickly. "Talk to me now before I lose consciousness, before I forget who you are."

"No," I said pleadingly. "Please tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help."

"You can't help everyone all the time, Hilde," Daniel said with a bitter-sweet smile. "You simply can't."

"I can," I said desperately. "Give me all of your poison, I could scream at the world. Give me all your venom, give me all your hopeless hearts and make me ill!" I screamed, not controlling myself anymore, succumbing to a hysterical crisis.

"Cry all you want, my friend, but who's going to save you?" Daniel said calmly.

"I don't want to be saved, I don't care. I could be damned for all I care, if it means others can live," I screamed furiously.

I saw Fenris's look of terror on his face as I screamed those words. Maybe I was indeed, as he said, the queen of the damned. I desperately wanted to ensure the continuity of the ones that were around me, yet they kept dying. Wasn't that reason enough to push him away? Would it not for all this venom in the world that lingered around me? He would die too just being in my presence. I was such a fool. So terribly greedy. I was no saint.

"Give me liquor," Daniel said. "I wish to taste the alcohol one more time."

"That's the great amend you're making? Getting drunk?" I screamed and went by the table to grab a bottle of brandy. He had meantime sat up on the bed, staring straight at the bottle as it hung from my hand. He reached out for it, and took it and drank it thirstily.

"Take a good look at me," I demanded angrily.

"It's too dark in here, idiot," he said. "How can I take a good look at anything? Hmmm, but this is good. Thank you, whoever you are."

He was starting to lose it. I was starting to lose it too.

"Take a good look at me," I growled and grabbed him by the collar.

Suddenly he paused with the bottle just beneath his lips. It was a strange thing, the way in which he hesitated. It was as if he were in Lothering again, and he'd just sensed a Templar coming up on him, or some other lethal beast. He froze, as it were, with the bottle in hand, and only his eyes moved as his eyes looked up at me.

"Hildegaard," he whispered.

"Yes, I'm alive," I said gently. "They didn't kill me. I got to Kirkwall and I'm safe. Both mother and Carver are safe."

"But not …" he whispered.

I sighed and shook my head, "No."

His eyes were sorrowful. Indeed, a grand serenity settled over him. He was far too drunk for his reason to revolt or for cheap surprise to torment him. On the contrary, the truth stole in and over him in a wave, subduing him, and he understood of all its ramifications again, as his mind came back. That I had not suffered, that I was rich, I was well.

"Hildegaard," he whispered again, but there was no change in his face. There was only sedate wonder. He sat still, both hands on the bottle which he had lowered to his lap, his huge shoulders very straight, and his flowing black hair as long as I'd ever seen it, melting into the fur of his cloak.

"I'm here," I said bitterly, taking him by the shoulders. "I'm here." I hugged him tightly, not knowing exactly what else to do and pushing back the tears.

"Look at me," he demanded sickly as I kept his balance. He looked at me with pale, suffering eyes, I could see that he was dying. I understood suddenly that he was indeed diseased from within and would soon truly die. I felt such terror, looking at him, such a terror for my whole world and all my friends, but more him than anyone else at the moment. It was just a tiresome, common and inevitable disease. "You can't do anything for me. Not even healing will work. I know you will try," he coughed heavily, "Don't. As much as you are tempted."

"I am indeed much tempted, I've been training again," I said pleadingly.

"You have?" he asked in utter amazement. He gave out a hoarse, painful and sickly laugh. "You? Oh, I'm so happy that I didn't die before I knew such wonder coming from you. Oh… my darling little Hawke, covered in mud and full of scars, crippled to no end every day by the sword and you kept going and going. And you left the magic behind," he coughed again hoarsely, "and now you tell me you've taken it up again."

"Well, I'm full of wonders," I said angrily.

He smiled. "Well, your Father was a wise man. He always believed you would find it in your heart to accept what you were. So he kept telling me and making me promise I won't whisper it to you."

"I haven't accepted anything," I said angrily and spat on the ground. "That's what magic is to me."

He laughed again, "Oh my, such familiar rudeness. Much like Andrei."

I ignored him, "Please, let me try to heal you."

"You will not," he commanded bitterly. "But I have something to ask of you."

"What is it?" I asked in fear.

"You must promise you will grant me this last wish, after I give you something that was supposed to go to you long ago," he said calmly in-between panting. His face was already sweating with illness, his eyes were fading off colour. No…

He reached out for his rugged coat, but looked at me firmly, "Promise."

I shook my head rapidly. "I- I can't promise. I know what you want of me."

He faintly tried to grab me by the arm, but barely could. He was so ghostly sick. "Please."

I pressed my eyes shut, the whispered bitterly, "Fine."

He got out a locket with a red rune inside. "This was your Father's. He asked me to give it you, when you-"

"Thank you," I said in amazement. Oh, what a marvel, that my Father had brought it back with him, all the way from the scene of such loss, a long time ago. And yet why not? Why not would such a man as he have done such a thing? And give it to Danny to give to me.

I feared for it, this fragile peace of steel and this glistering lacquered red rune, meant to shine all the time. I hadn't seen it for a very long time.

But is there anyone who needs now to ask me what this locket-rune meant to me? Is there anyone who needs now to know why, when I saw the Pheonix symbol on it – I saw the face of my Father in it, as if from beyond the Veil, telling me I'm not alone in this, that he did not want to leave me. That I would be fine, either way. That he did not resent me for how we left things.

"Do it," Daniel said bitterly. "I want you to do it."

"I can't," I shouted. "You can't ask this of me. I won't."

"Do you have no sense of honour, Hawke?" he asked firmly. "What happened to live, serve, protect and die? In victory – peace and in death – freedom?"

"That's a mere platitude when you're standing right in front of me!" I shouted angrily.

"Allow me to do it," Fenris intervened knightly with a lash of concern and sorrow directed at me. I thanked him in my mind for his compassion, but I couldn't allow him to do it for me.

Daniel snorted. "Hush! This elf has more sense of honour than you, Hawke! You're a coward!"

"I am not!" I screamed. "I- " I growled. "I'll do it. So help me I'll do it. I'm sorry."

"Do it, now!" he screamed. "Now, I beg you." He reached out with his hands around my neck. I reached for my dagger. "No, Hawke. With your own sword." I sighed and took my sword, and just when I thought I would change my mind at the last moment, I plunged it deeply through his heart. The last glimpse of his eyes I saw, a look of honest, friendly gratitude.

I swallowed heavily as he died, I held him into my arms and closed his eyes as he perished. Then I took my sword out, pressed my eyes shut and threw it at the wall, blood smearing all across from it.

Fuck. Fuck… Fucking bitch.

And just when I was about to fall onto my knees in tears, I swallowed all of it and dispatched of his body in the middle of the night, the patron kept distracted by Fenris.

Then Fenris helped me carry his body to the nearby shore and I set him on the sea on a boat I stole from the harbour nearby. I set it on fire with my hands and let it float away on the water, as it was the Ferelden custom.

Watching him turn to dust in the distance, Fenris felt clumsy at my petrified state and probably did not know what much to say or do. I appreciated him for not trying to comfort me in any way. It was a warrior's sense of honour to stay silent for the fallen. Only the living knew victory. For the dead, out of respect, you would remain quiet and pray in your mind, however childishly, that they would know peace.

I could not shed a single tear.

**– Gap –**

Fenris knew of my struggle, he knew the hold which Ferelden had upon me, and he knew of the crucial importance of all this to me. He understood better than anyone I've ever known that each being wars with his own angels and demons, each being succumbs to an essential set of values, a theme, as it were, which is inseparable from living a proper life.

For us, life was the warrior life. But it was in every sense life, and sensuous life too. And fleshy, and… joyful. I could not escape it from the compulsions and obsessions I'd felt as when I was younger. On the contrary, they were now magnified – the demons of my past.

No MATTER how long we exist, we have our memories— points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems and some mere sacks of filth I always strive to forget. For all the souls I could not save. For all the souls that made it so only apparently, as if by some cruel predisposition of destiny, that they did not let me save them.

Within the day after what happened, I knew I had set the tone for my approach to the world around me yet again. I should wallow in luscious beauty of Antivan painting and music and architecture, yes, but I would do it with the fervor of a Ferelden saint. I would turn all sensuous experiences to goodness and purity. I would learn, I would increase understanding, I would increase in compassion for the people around me, and I would never cease to put a pressure upon my soul to be that which I believed was good.

Good was above all kind; it was to be gentle. It was to waste nothing. It was to paint, to read, to study, to listen, to love, even to pray, though to whom I prayed I wasn't sure, and it was to take very opportunity to be generous to those people whom I did not kill.

As for those I killed, I would have probably struggled to dispatch them mercifully, that I would become the absolute mistress of mercy, but such fantasy was way over my head.

But regardless, I swallowed my grief and became cheerful again, for everyone else's sake, all the while thinking of the world - and now, you singular druggist-souls, you have made of death a drop of poison, unpleasant to taste, which makes the whole of life hideous.

And that's when the scene with the fountain came. When he forced me to rest upon his chest, when he said that he didn't see my magic as curse, when he told me he would teach me whatever he had to teach, for it was high time he repaid me for everything I had given him.

But the story is not over… I still couldn't remember how I ended up in the brothel. I had to press harder. I had to concentrate.

**– To be continued –**

**– (duh) –**


	28. Con Te Partiro

Woman! When I behold thee flippant, vain,

Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;

Without that modest softening that enchances

The downcast eye, repentant of the pain

That its mild light creates to heal again:

Even then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,

Even then my soul with exultation dances

For that to love, so long, I've dormant lain:

But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,

Heavens! How desperately I adore

Thy winning graces; - to be thy defender

I hotly burn – to be a Calidore –

A very Red Cross Knight – a stout Leander –

Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.

(John Keats,  _Sonnet I of Three Sonnets To A Woman)_

H.B. Hawke here,  _still_ here, to usher and guide you through this fervent tumult of my mind, trying to recall and decipher the chunks of memories that I had lost. And as it turns out, I had lost a great deal, and not just memories.

Understand, Danny's sudden death had a toll on me. I could never quite forgive neither myself, for how I had left things, nor him, for how he chose to depart from this world. I knew he was sick; he had been a sickly boy even as a child. He would sit days on end in bed, while I, Bethany, Carver and his brother, Andrei, played like wild dogs in the street. He and Bethany were the… nicer, the wiser of us. The mediators. Me? I was the leader of the group, the brat queen, but I had a rival! A contestant to my unyielding, incandescent little throne – his brother. Oh, Andrei and Carver were so mean, so deliberately rude to me, so questioning of my every word and move. And after a while, it seemed as I had to choose or better yet, to sever myself in half, to spend time with Danny and Bethany in our magic training, and then with Andrei and Carver in our sword training. At the end of the day, we'd gather by the lake just outside town and share stories of mighty demons they lied about fighting and the other two dog-heads boasted about how great and strong they were and how they had slain wolves. Fortunately, I was there for both groups to shed light on the truth – that there was no demon or wolf slaying, in fact – most of the time it was accidental setting fire to each other's clothes on the mages side and accidental hitting one's head with the pummel of one's sword on the warriors side.

It was… delightful, and frustrating. Daniel and Andrei were twins, one mage, one warrior, just like Bethany and Carver. I was the fifth wheel of the carriage, subtly appointed leader and alone on my grand throne. I was the freak-show mage warrior they looked up and challenged whenever they were annoyed with me. I'd quickly put them down.

As we grew older, there was a certain, well, different dynamic to us, because our bodies developed and hormones were flushing and boiling in and out of our system. Everyone was a smart mouth. Andrei was mean and revolting, provoking me every time with his smug grimaces and arrogant lines, while he was with Carver, and my brother enjoyed every minute of it. There was someone else challenging my great "authority and might". Danny remained careless and polite, more so probably not because Father took him under his wing, but because I was sure he had a certain crush on Bethany. Oh, he tried so hard! I remember once he tried to impress her with the fact that he could now form wisps and as he flew one green wisp around his head, Bethany turned away to talk to  _her_  certain crush, his brother Andrei, and Danny's wisp went haywires, whirled around his head and in his mouth. He threw up for hours, bah, that little idiot!

We weren't really friends… not really. At least, I didn't see it that way. We were all forced to be in each other's company because of our training and the proximity. I never pictured the two brothers, I don't know, giving their lives for anybody if something morbid happened. At least not for me. For Beth or Carver, sure. Maybe.

And I couldn't be more annoyed by the fact that I had to sit and listen to mages talk about their powers and how great they were – all in good prudence of course, when we would be alone and it was late at night. Because as I grew older, I grew just as well, away from magic and slowly had to emotionally distance myself from those who wielded it.

As for Carver and Andrei, they were a tiresome lot. I enjoyed their company as much as I could, but they didn't understand me. My brother and sister each had their own best friend, a fellow companion much like themselves who understood their plight and shared the same views and theories.

As for me, my only real friend was my Father. He was the only one who understood me, just as well, because he had already been through my journey of understanding. He was no ordinary mage and he was the least bit enthusiastic of them all, except for me. With Bethany, he tried to teach her his ways in other manners, learning from the mistakes he made with me, and she was quick to accept her magic and use it to be something brilliant. She felt at ease, manipulating elements, creating light and fire, ice and so on.

Only once did I come, as a young adult almost, to make temporary peace with my "gift" and it was all because Lothering was in a state of great turmoil, its lands and crops being devastated by the draught. It was a long and painful summer. Maker, it felt like were in the jungles of Seheron! I mean, I could only imagine that was the kind of swelling heat that conquered the north.

I made it rain. I don't know if it was my own selfish, patience to an end desire to feel my favourite thing in the world besides wielding a sword, or it was an honest act of mercy for my fellow people. I stood one night, in the middle of the night of course when nobody was awake to see me, away from any prying eye of a guard. Actually I stood on the roof the Chantry, if you must know. I found it a bit poetic and macabre at the same time… the vagabond mage atop the very symbol of that tried to kill me and everything I was. And here in a fit of mercy, I tricked nature! With stretched hands and a ravaging stoic look on my face as I channelled the power and the skies started to jolt, thunder scorching through the clouds and showers of cold, cold rain tempested across the raging canvas that made my little Lothering. I felt like an epic god of thunder, god of rain, earthshaker who feels no pain!

"… But in my whole awesomeness, I didn't take into account that this badassery of mine stripped me of my mana and I quickly fell. NO! I didn't fall off the Chantry," she said this to Fenris, as he listened peacefully to the story of my tormented existence. We were still sitting on the edge of the fountain, hours passed already from that one surprising act of comfort coming from him. She let go of him soon and started telling the tale and he only complained darkly with his eyes that he didn't want her to let go of his warm hold. But she couldn't risk diving into more at that moment. Because she, just as him, were full of the childish drive to force themselves into things they didn't understand.

He looked at her with some kind of fatherly disapproving look, all in savour of that hauntingly irresistible grin he only allowed her to see, which kind of said 'You're a terribly deranged clown mage and you continue to astound me'.

"Tell me, is there any story you tell that does not have some incredible twist which only proves how luck has a tendency to save you from every dangerous escapade?" Fenris asked in a grumpy, but entertained voice, as he rested his elbow upon his knee and cupped his chin like a mighty, judging superior.

Hawke rolled hers eyes and sighed, "Fine, I lie. I did, I almost did. Good thing that I had a stalker."

"Oh?" Fenris asked with raising an eyebrow.

"The twins followed me. Danny with his stupid force magic and Andrei with his incredibly arrogant smirks like saying I told you so, I told you so," Hawke said mockingly and laughed, "But, bah, what can I say… thank you? A word to the wise? Then the fire dies. Hasta la vista. You can stop judging me now."

Fenris knew she knew, there was a question boiling in his bones, but he was refraining from asking it in respect to the recently deceased and to Hawke's supressed grief, but she sighed heavily at his honourable silence and said, "It's always like this with you. Just ask your question."

His eyebrows suddenly joined in a bewildered frown and he rose from his elbow-resting-on-knee posture, his back straight and his hand squeezing defensively at the edge of the fountain, as if he would lest simply lose his balance.

"Come on, I know something's bothering you. Just ask. I mean, if it has to do with the story, that is," Hawke said calmly with an arrogant smile. "You wonder which of the twins was my not so love, but tragic story nonetheless, don't you?"

"Could I be more transparent?" Fenris asked grumpily, shaking his head with annoyed half-closed eyes.

"Well, if you turn your glow on, you'll be translucent, transparent, transculture, transcendent, transfixing  _and_  trans…matter," Hawke said in amusement, finishing deliberately awkward on the last word, with which she smiled provokingly. "Only thing missing is to be transgender."

Fenris burst into soft laughter, "That is out of the question."

"The Kirkwall Banquette?" Hawke reminded him with an evil grin.

"I was dressed in man's clothing, I only  _felt_ like a woman in them," Fenris corrected her defensively. "And with good reason, they were meant for you to wear."

"And not even a good-looking woman, right? You did feel a bit flat-chested when you put that shirt on," Hawke teased him playfully. "Oh, you would have killed to have some breasts in there to fill the void, didn't you?"

"Or at least some lyrium breasts tattooed on my chest. That would have made things considerably better," Fenris joked while smiling shortly.

Hawke chucked heavily, "Maker's breath, now that's an image I'll never get out of my head," then she burst into drunken laughter, "Oh and when you're angry you start squirting lyrium milk out of your nipples!" She continued laughing hysterically and almost fell with her back into the fountain.

Fenris shook his head, one corner of his mouth drawing shyly into a grin. "As if having two points glowing blue through my chest plate wouldn't have been enough."

"Oh shit, you're right. That would be so awesome! You know that warrior song 'Sword into the wind'?"

Fenris shook his head. "No, what of it?"

"It goes something like 'Sail into the black of night, magic stars are guiding light'. Screw magic stars, Fenris's blue glowing nipples will be our guiding light in the darkness!" She continued laughing hysterically and again, was going backwards and almost falling.

Fenris caught her quickly and put her back into place, shaking his head, "Oh, I wonder whatever happened to inappropriately groping drunken Hawke."

"What? You don't like inappropriately bullshitting with fastidious imagination about lyrium breasts Hawke?" she asked confidently, in-between hiccups.

Fenris smirked softly, "I enjoy them both, as long as I too am drunk enough to suffer them."

"Oh, boohoo on the private stoic elf who hisses at anybody that even remotely touches him," Hawke mocked him playfully.

Fenris lifted his eyebrows with an evil grin, "I don't remember ever hissing when you dared to touch me. In fact," he took a hold of his chin arrogantly, "I remember quite a warm welcoming of it."

Hawke drew a mocking grimace, "So that's how you warmly welcome groping? By hostile and violent assaulting of the grop _er_? You ought to look up 'warm' in the dictionary, now that you  _can_ do it."

Fenris smirked and looked away knightly, "I find hostility on my part to be deeply misinterpreted. But even so," he said firmly and looked back at Hawke with the piercing green eyes, "there's nothing like a bit of fear to go with courting a woman."

"Oh? Is this what you're doing? Courting me?" Hawke asked in deep amusement. "I would have never guessed."

His calm face didn't change, but his innocence burst through the cracks of his mask, so he finally said, "Which only bears testament to how truly terrible I am at this," he confessed in amusement for himself.

Hawke smiled to no end, and started to appear cocky, resting a hand on her thigh. "When did this start? I'm quite impressed. Being so foolishly deceived and I didn't even know it!"

Fenris didn't answer, but her look was ever more commanding. He finally muttered, "Consciously, on my part? Since that night in your mansion." She remained unimpressed, pressing silently on the other thing, so he cursed at her in his mind. He sighed and looked down, his hair masking a small, contained smile. "Do you really want to know?"

Hawke leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees to catch his innocent gaze masked by his white hair, "Why, yes, I do."

"I will not tell you anything," Fenris said calmly, continuing to smile faintly. "Unless I can hold you to the same deed."

Hawke grimaced, "Way to kill the mystery."

"Then let this be a mystery," Fenris said firmly, containing his grin.

"Not so fast," Hawke commanded assertively. "I want to know."

"Why is this so important to you?" Fenris asked as if he was genuinely confused.

Hawke rolled her eyes. "Do I really have to answer that?"

He sighed, still looking down, and muttered grumpily, "Who goes first?"

"Hmmmm, you," she said childishly. He remained silent, looking terrified even in such calmness. "What you don't trust me that I'll hold my end of the deal?"

The corner of his lips moved as if something bothered him and blocked the words out, "It's not that."

Hawke smiled warmly. "Fine then, don't tell me." He remained silent, as if he was arguing with two ardent parts of himself and almost going into calm frenzy. "It's alright."

"In the Deep Roads," he said quickly, with a deep voice.

Fenris finally found the courage to look at her, but his calm face bore through the cracks of his mask a very distinct turmoil. Of her laughing at him. Or being so impetuously and in a negative way astounded by his progressively growing weakness for her, a mage of all people. He waited for her answer with cold eyes and covered fear.

Hawke's mouth widened and her eyebrows lifted highly, "Well I'll be a Chantry granny, your timing was perfect."

"It was?"

"Yes. Well…" Hawke looked away and pressed her lips. "When you were dying," she said and looked at him with sad, tormented eyes reliving the memory, "as I saw you there so terribly beaten, six giant roaring wounds on you, blood spilling out like cascades from each hole," she said with sudden pain in her voice, gesturing everything graphically, "betraying the undeniable clarity of your death soon enough… "I couldn't-" she laughed at herself, "I couldn't picture you dying. It simply…" she gestured with an open palm, "had the fullness of catastrophe."

This was a much better answer than I could have ever expected of you, his face said. He wanted to kiss her, his face also said. But he turned that kiss and laboured it into words, "There is no more mystery now, to why I had not felt a thing through my markings when you healed me."

Hawke smiled with her lips parted, showing teeth, a genuine smile. "Yes, fascinating indeed, is it not? How this honest willingness for me to save you, even back then when everything with us seemed to be quarrel, just argument and torment. And even with my clumsy magic. But I could have been just as dead, had you not found the strength to swoop into the dragon and cut its neck." She looked down because he was smiling at her widely for once and she was frightened. "I wasn't then and I'm not, as strong as you think me, Fenris."

"Yet you are here, are you not?" Fenris said nonchalantly. "And finding me crushed, you gave me your strength to save me."

It was a cold answer, lacking in flattery or kindness, yet it seemed quite enough. A statement enough in itself, and it struck her then that he was so very different than the first conception she had of him.

She nodded, and as she looked at him, a lovely smile broke over his face, and for one moment Fenris seemed to fall into a dreaminess which brought back all the memories of their quarrels and their peaceful conversations, the healing, the argument about his stubborn pretence, as they escaped the Deep Roads, that he was only there to repay his debt, her disappearance, her return at the banquette, their dance, their night on the roof, her bold expression of her care for him then, her drunken groping and his brutal tease, her honest backrubs with no other advances, the mornings they shared together in their hangovers drinking tea, her seductive assault on top of his back when she remembered his petty moves on her when she had been drunk that one night, when she figured out he did not know how to read and stood with patience by him as he tried to mutter the words out from the many books she gave him, when he struggled and growled, ready to throw the pen away as he tried to write, because his letters were far more hideous than her beautiful handwriting, how she pressed on his arm and forced him patiently, almost motherly, not to give up.  _Just take a breath and look around. And start anew._

He told her he didn't know how, that his first memory was receiving those markings, the agony being etched into his skin and wiped away everything. His life before, whatever it was, it was lost. He told her he shouldn't trouble her with this, that his problems were not hers. She only grinned truthfully telling him his problems could be hers for she was going to give him plenty soon enough. He could only smile honestly and welcome it. Little did he know, just what would follow.

"Were you happy again at least?" Hawke asked tiredly. He didn't answer. "Remember what I taught you. Reach into the depths of your soul. Tell yourself that you are free. Tell yourself that death and mercilessness have no power over you. A glorious thing has befallen you, you had escaped, and it is enough that you did, you said so yourself. You could become forever free, even if you have those wolves at your back and coming with delay to hunt you down. They do not matter. None of it does. Except this: the wolf you deliberately keep on your back, always. That is what's going to kill you. I can only help you with the actual wolves, but I will not force you to change your conceptions. This, I promise."

–  **Gap –**

I was leaning, half about to faint. The air was rosy and golden, purely Antivan. The dark narrow street was warm, much as was the wall my back had been shoved against as brutally as it was enthralling. I felt Fenris's lips on mine, and his warm tongue moving serpentlike into my mouth. A liquid so rich like a burning nectar, a feel so exquisite that I felt it roll through my body to the very tips of my fingers thrusting in his back. I felt it descend through my torso and into the most private part of me. I burned. I burned.

"You may not be a Valkyrie," Fenris said in-between the heated kiss, panting his hot breath on my neck, pertaining to my first name, "Nor a saint," he continued with his deeply dark voice, pertaining to my second name,  _ah-_  his fingers tightened as he caressed my face, "but you're certainly a crude temptress," he growled cruelly with a dark grin and rapidly thrust his spikes into my-

"Am  _I-hhh_ ," I gasped deadly, my eyes going through the back of my head, but he was merciless.

"If I ever saw one," he finished confidently.

I couldn't – uh, I couldn't. How did we get here, I don't know, but I allowed it. Did I start this? It didn't seem to matter. Fenris managed yet again to inflame me with such heartless lack of concern for my permissions. I knew once I lured the tiger out of his mountain, they would mean nothing to him. His touch, his touch only burned with undisguised desire.

"Kiss me," I whispered commandingly. "Kiss me again."

He obeyed me, and soon had me ravished. And as my fingers tightened in his rampant hair, his kisses grew more fervent. His lips bore my violent bites and he grew bloodred with his cresting passion.

He suddenly withdrew, kissing my forehead as though I was chaste again.

"No," I revolted aggressively. "You're not done," I said confidently, as if I was some cruel dominatrix. I quickly regretted giving him orders.

"I am not about to take advantage of you," Fenris said firmly, then he drew a sensual smirk that showed only one or two of his sharp teeth, " _further._ "

"You don't have to." I wrapped my arms roughly around his neck again and he tried to free himself from me, giving me an angry look. "Isn't this little challenge just the perfect testament to how much a warrior can control himself?"

Fenris narrowed his eyes and took a step closer, his eyes again only an inch from mine. "And how many challenges do you want to give me before I give in?"

"As many as you can bear," I said playfully. "This is not the last."

"So you do mean to tempt me," Fenris said sharply, his gauntlet tightening his grip on my hand.

"I always set out to do nothing," I said innocently. "And then look how it almost  _always_ turns out."

"I will not do anything further than that without honour anyway," Fenris said confidently. "Mind you, since I  _am_ a warrior."

"What do you mean?" I asked in confusion. Maker I wanted him so bad, I could've said anything just to make him go back to what he was doing.

Then his eyes flinched with an evil realization that he could tease me into it. Maker damn his demonic eyes. Maker damn him to eternity.

His hand reached for the back of my hip and he grinned widely, "I'm not proposing marriage, but I do need a word out of you." He went for my neck and shocked the skin again with his remarkably sharp teeth and hot lips only a man from the tropic lands of the north could possess. And I could almost hear the end of his sentence  _and I am yours._ What was I doing, no. Mother of commitments, he was playing with me. I would not give in.

His entire demeanour altered at my silence, because without bearing out words, I was practically letting him see in my eyes I wanted to… to make him mine. He softened and I could see he was just on the verge of hope, hope that at I might be good to him.

I brought his face away from my neck. "And you mean to torture me until I do, yes?" I asked perceptively, with a hint of hate for him in my words.

Fenris tilted his head to the side and fiercely grinned in my hands, "Hopefully that will not be necessary." He shoved my hands away nonchalantly and continued his satanic kisses.

I struggled. "And if I don't, you'll never lay touch on me again?" I asked innocently, trying to remain undaunted.

He stopped his lips and looked at me with the back of his eye in terrible silence, cursing at me in his mind for pointing out the obvious that he would probably break his word.

"I am not your servant," he almost hissed calmly. "If you want a whore, there's plenty right across the street."

"So I can pay you?" I asked sarcastically, but pretending to ask in innocent tone.

His eyes shrunk in anger and impatience, and again, I regretted my playing around. But he was doing the same thing, a move so petty as to demand of me things right in the middle of a heated encounter. So he could strike so low sometimes. Yes, he would be cruel because he had no experience, at least as far as I knew, and the familiar territory of attacking each other was indeed, familiar.

"So this is how it is? I don't say the word, you're not giving it up? I swear there's something poetic in it somewhere," I said sarcastically.

He leaned his hand against the wall next to my face. "Just watch me," Fenris said confidently with narrowed, unyielding dark eyes, throwing the gauntlet, as it were.

I smiled undauntedly and shrugged, "Then I'm not going to force this. You don't have to do anything you don't desire to," I played strategically, with careful words.

"Semantics," Fenris hissed with narrowed hateful eyes and shook his head, pushing me aggressively against the wall.

"Indeed, I am an expert at it," I mocked him confidently, since he was such an expert at it too. "Just watch me. I'm a blazon of chastity." I raised my palms in peace and turned the table, assuring him I wouldn't press it and it wouldn't affect me that he was withholding from continuing anything in the way things were.

"What in the name of the Black City can it be?" Fenris asked angrily. "Whatever is it that frightens you, tell me. Hawke, there's nothing that can't be changed. Tell me."

"Oh, you're so violent in your temper," I said in a whisper. "Can't you guess what reduces me to this abominable weakness?"

"No," Fenris hissed angrily. "I know only that you are frightened and I must understand it." Then he sighed and had dazed a sorrowful look. "And I must be patient with it."

"And until then this beautiful white hair of yours might finally suit the age," I said subtly, and in a perfectly miserable voice as I ran my fingers through it.

Fenris sighed shortly, boiling in frustration. I could see it. He gave me an angry glance that was enough to render me powerless. "You're terrible," he whispered painfully and brought me to his lips. "Terrible," he kept muttering after each time he bit my lip shortly. And just when he was about to moan from my touch, he contained it, drew away from me and struck me a firm, dark grin with his eyes. "I shall abuse of you with pitiful limitation then."

He was drunk, so deeply drunk, but impressing in his apparent control before the absolute carnal which we both wanted to feel. However, he was also limiting himself in more than that way and I knew it. Even if I were indeed, ready to make of him an honest man, even if I were at peace with my tortured soul and welcomed him fully in my world as my partner in everything, he was still withholding something. A terrible story. And as long as that stood, I would only be a sensuous, beautiful get-away and nothing more. If he didn't trust me to understand his past, well, I didn't trust him either. As much as I did, as much as he inspired in me the most complete devotion.

I kissed him again, and whispered in his ear, calculatingly, devil that I am, "I need you, Fenris."

"Hmph," Fenris snorted at me with unimpressed eyes. "Do you now?" I can't say what controlled rage or desperation prompted this question. And disbelief.

"Just for the sake of it, I confessed it to you. Do with it what you will," I said confidently, trying to ease this out. I'm lying though, that was not the ultimate purpose. I just had to say it, even though it changed nothing.

He was genuinely shocked. Good sign. His eyes really widened. He furrowed his brow.

His face darkened. I couldn't name the emotions that seemed to pass over his expression, the sadness, indecision, confusion and ultimate perplexity that transformed him.

–  **Gap –**

Oh SHIET. Yes, I remember how we got there in such demonic frenzy! Yes, how foolish of me!

Reverse time and just for the sake of it, I'll narrate in the third person, because even as I am drunk, I am not horny, no. I'm not driven in this memory, just yet, by some utterly enveloping thought of making him mine. Let it simply be, that I, just as you, saw this memory as if I was some point outside of it, watching from a polite distance.

An Antivan man started holding a procession in the street. His voice was marvellous, that of a pure tenor, as he started singing and interrupted their little conversation. Grand, huge annoyance drew on Fenris's face as this man's voice resounded in the piazza. Wasn't it curfew already?

Hawke could swear he would start violently hissing any moment now. But she was too busy listening to this man dressed in fine red Antivan garments, his face that of some mannish angel seeking to possess the crowd that stopped to watch him. There were  _people,_ in the street! They hardly noticed. Now the reality was ever more striking.

"Oh, if only I knew Antivan," Hawke said with a bitter smile, drawing a lamenting grimace.

"Antivan is much in its respect, rank gutter-Tevene," Fenris said calmly, tilting his head to his side as if he was trying to make out the words.

"Can you make out the words, then?" Hawke asked innocently, a bit of pleading in her voice, because she seemed enchanted by the song.

Fenris cleared his throat shortly, his brows joined in an analysing frown, "I shall try."

She could only fathom something about the sun, and "luce" which probably meant light or something of the sort. And "con me", which could only mean "with me." The man voiced the apparent chorus again with such splendour, such rampant love for whatever he was singing about, one could easily be deceived by this warmth. It was the Antivan poetic warmth for everything and everyone.

Fenris's voice came serene and deep, as if the words were his own, "You and me. With you I will leave." Hawke looked and listened to him alarmed of his courageous translation.

He rested on his arm on the edge of the fountain, looking at the man and continued, "Countries," he said calmly, "which I have never," then he paused to clear his throat, "seen and lived with you."

Then Fenris remained perplex for a second, as if he couldn't make out the next bit, but attempted at it with unyielding perseverance for Hawke's sake, "Now, yes, I will leave them…" he looked at her for a second innocently with the back of his eye, "With you, I will leave."

He frowned again, deciphering the next bit, but quickly continued, "On ships across seas? Which I know… No, no, they no longer exist."

Hawke contained her smile and listened to him in awe of his strive to make of the words for her. He continued with a bit of a faint smile, "With you I will live them."

The tenor started singing a stanza again very quickly and Fenris lifted his eyebrows and gasped for breath, almost ready to admit defeat. Hawke smiled at him warmly as if to say, don't do it anymore, it's alright. I get the main theme. But Fenris was never one to give up and in this impossible drive in him for honour had authority over his brain. He brushed the hair fastidiously from his forehead and concentrated, "Uh, when you are… far away? I dream," he paused to regain his wits, "on the horizon, and words fail."

Hawke chuckled only quietly at his innocent struggle and encouraged him to go further. He tried. He tried. He almost burst into laughter himself from this nonsense, but then finally muttered after sighing, "And I do know that you are," he looked at Hawke again just for a second with the back of his eyes, "with me."

She tried to look away, as if to not make him feel too self-conscious of his concentration, but just as she moved her look away, a warm hand came over hers on the edge of the fountain. Fenris only grinned softly, seeming more like a brat prince, the Knight of Roses, ever than before, and only continued in his velvety, deep voice, "You, my Moon, you are here with me." Maybe he grinned because he remembered her bearing the name Sir Luna Rosebud in her childhood play, maybe he grinned innocently because he simply and felt like it, chivalrously deterred as a young driven man in his apparent courting of Hawke.

Hawke didn't flinch, rather she just trembled in excitement of his knightly move. He continued, "My sun, you are here with me," then he only faintly swayed his head and lifted his eyebrows a bit mockingly, or maybe just in tune with the melody, "With me, with me, with me."

She smiled childishly at his melodic swaying, now only faintly with his whole torso, but when he saw her watching him, he stopped awkwardly, grinning for a second. Fenris continued the same chorus, even though Hawke knew it by now, perhaps to make the words really seem his, "With you, I leave. On ships across seas, which I know and no, no, they no longer exist." Fenris squeezed Hawke's hand. "With you I will live them again."

The tenor finished with a loud, powerful vibrato  _Io con te_ , at which Fenris smirked arrogantly and tried maybe to become cold again, but couldn't win the little battle within himself any longer. As the Antivan man ended his song, the last three words Fenris spoke, "I," he said in a deep, determined voice and brought Hawke's hand to kiss it knightly, "with you."

–  **Gap –**

"Well now," I said cockily as I separated from his warm lips. Me, a vagabond mage so sophisticated in my barbarism, in this Antivan abandoned corner of the world, a brat queen of the undercity  _and_ the higher classes.

"Well now," I said. "There's a great mystery here and you know it. It's time you told me."

He growled furiously. "What?" he asked obligingly as he got interrupted from his boyish desire.

"What's it that you haven't told me? I can feel it on your lips, you want to tell me. Not about me or us, but about you," I demanded perceptively.

He didn't want to answer. I saw he wasn't ready and was refusing me powerfully with his eyes even if his face bore no emotion of such grandeuor.

"Fine," I pressed a bit cockily, because I was drunk and merciless. "Then maybe I should seek to make you feel something else, to change this tormented face of yours."

His eyes grew colder and more beautifully calm. "What is it that you want me to feel, hm?" he whispered deeply, as he still had me pushed tight against the wall.

"You play with me and I'm the toy that feels all things. It's not fair," I said playfully. "Let me- "

I wanted to go for his pants to torture him, but he took my hand. He took my fingers and put them to his lips, and drew them across his strong jaws. He kissed them as he did so and I didn't want to let him win.

Quite enough, said his eyes, quite enough.

"Not quite enough," I said cockily. I managed to put my hand between his legs. Oh, he was wonderfully hard. That was not uncommon, of course, but he wouldn't let me take him further, because of course, he wouldn't break his word. This was no honour. How could he, though, when I played so dirty. I wanted him to choose either to confess whatever he was holding back or let me play him with wickedness, because he deserved it.

Maybe don't tease the tiger when you can't even account for the last hours from your day. Clearly, I was not in the brightest frame of mind. Nor was he. I was so drunk, helplessly in his arms. How the hell did we even end up here, alone and …  _alone_?

"Hawke," he said insistently, his lips on my throat as they'd come quite a few times before, only this time there came a sting, sharp, swift and gone. A bite so hard that a thread stitched into my heart and was jerked all of a sudden. His mouth nestled against me, and again, that thread of shock snapped again. He shoved me harder against the wall and went back to kissing me, quickening my heart and jolting my everything as his tongue swirled like a serpent into mine.

"So that's the twist you put on it, isn't it?" I asked perceptively because I was impressed, in-between the heat and kisses.

"Not quite," he said darkly, his voice hoarsely filled with arousal, "But I can show you further, if you wish."

I didn't really know how to answer this. He didn't ignore my hesitation though. For all this brutal demeanour of his, he still awaited knightly for my permissions, now I finally understood. "Show me."

But then I can't remember exactly what he did, except that it had something to do with his lyrium glow, his hand and  _oh-_  The world moved out from under me. I gasped and drifted, and my eyes opened and saw nothing as he shut his mouth over mine again.

"Fen - _rhis,_ you're killing me," I whispered. I tossed somewhere in him, seeking to find some firm place in this dreamy intoxication void. My body just churned and rolled with pleasure, my limbs tightening then floating, my whole body issuing from him, from his lips, through my lips, my body his very breath and his sigh.

At last, his hand became like iron. There came the sting, there came the spikes, the blade, tiny and sharp beyond measure, puncturing my soul. I twisted on it as if I'd been skewered. Oh, this could teach the gods of love what love was. This was my deliverance if I could but survive whatever he was doing with his markings on me so viciously bad.

Blind and shaking I was wed to him. I was going to burst,  _burst._ I felt his hand cover my mouth, and only then heard my cries as they were muffled away. I wrapped my hand around his neck, pressing him against me harder, "Do it again."

–  **Gap –**

**\- (you hate me for these gaps don't you) -**


	29. I Am Fenris And I Am Angry

She is obsessed. She brings this symbol of all that is deranged, obnoxious and revolting. She brings in me this liberation, this sense of absolute security while I am in her presence, drawing in me the most complete loyalty to her, that I simply cannot define. That I can trust her, perhaps? Wait… why I am telling you this? Perhaps because I am angry, so angry that I could build an orphanage for stray puppies and kittens and then smash it to the ground without a speck of mercy. That is so, how angry I am.  _Kaffas._

I suppose I could go on with my monologue, pretending your existence is ultimately void and in so, shall not affect my present view of things, nor the current mood I am in.  **It is already ruined**. And after all, you might agree – it is rather pointless for me to suggest keeping your distance.

I am Fenris and I am angry.

_Venhedis._ Yes, why not even look at me too? _Fasta vass,_  just bite me.

Swallow the image of my misery in full graphic richness like the sadistic painter that you are. I am disgusted by you. Alas, I presently do not give a damn.

I'm leaning with my arms against the window of my room in the palazzo or inn or whatever this ridiculous house is called, staring the city and the night with possibly nothing less than murder in my eyes. Yes, terrible murder. I wish I could murder somebody starting with Hawke and ending with  _bitch._ No, not whore, not slut, not thundercunt, a word I learned from her actually, none of those. I would never call her that. Then again, I would never call her the original word either, even though she deserved it.

Behold, your shadow of a hero for the duration; wanting so viciously and desperately to rip these crimson red curtains off, throw the vase from the desk into the wall, punch the glass of the window in front of me. Because I don't know _where_  she is.

Varric insisted she would come back, that we couldn't wonder for the whole of Antiva City in hopes we'd find her somewhere passed out in the gutter. It was dangerous enough as it is to even linger in this city after what he had done.

Don't even dare to look at me.

Do not  _dare._

I could kill you. You are well aware of this. Iam  _this close_ to crushing the veins of your heart in my hand until they burst with blood spilling like a fountain as your guts flush out and  _dare_ to stain my clothes. And because you dare, I will throw you to the nearest wall and as you fall down and bathe in your own filthy blood I will spit on you. I have no mercy at this moment.  _Opifex, creatores, caelestes et daemonia telluris sordidis._ No, I will not tell you what all these words mean, you will just have to ever so nicely make the effort of getting your own damned dictionary.

Oh, you wonder what has happened? Well that's perhaps my role in this story – to fill in the gaps of this stupid woman who somehow  _always_ manages to give me a stroke.

I have been through so much in my technically short life – I'd been tortured, I'd been resisted pains so harsh you would melt into your own skin and bones and beg for death were you in my place, I'd starved for months and found myself on the brink of death so many times and  _never_ did any of those things manage to startle or unsettle me. But no, I, the king of all the mighty idiots and fools, I get unsettled by a clown mage who knows nothing but to keep making me feel perhaps  _too alive_ for my own health.

I'd hit myself if I wasn't certain the boiling fury channelling in my fist would be more than enough to punch me out unconscious. I had to stay up and eternally vigilant, feeling like I had needed three sets of eyes to properly oversee every corner of this damn street under my window in hopes I would spot a forsaken fucking red crown of long beautiful hair which unfortunately rested on top of a head so furiously  _empty._ So, so scandalizingly empty.

No, it is quite clear why I am spitting words at you, betraying the very principles of my being that I would  _never_ give out a word, that I would not let anyone penetrate my thoughts in this manner. Oh, but Hawke managed to deflower me in this domain, why not let you all – yes, why not? Come and disturb my thoughts, revile me, strip my soul naked here and look at me while you ravish yourself in delight of my bestial anger. Yes, yes, laugh at me.

No, I do not mean to mock you. I do it unintentionally, it is simply so unnatural for me to take you seriously or show an ounce of respect at the moment. And if your keen intelligent mind hasn't figured me out by now, perhaps I have to spell it out for you now that I seem to be such a expert at something so cruelly mundane as writing.

Should I spell it with utmost patience, accentuating every little syllable perhaps?

No, I suppose I do not need to make such strong efforts. Because I am  _angry._ This is why I am speaking now.

She barges in here spitting her venomous monologues because she is a witch and a drunk, while I come here because I am deeply and preposterously blind with fury, you cannot even begin to imagine.

Oh, behold. Joys of joys, I have found the word I was looking for in this ridiculously sounding common tongue.  **Preposterous.**

Every time,  _kevesh_ , every time. Maker be damned, every time I come near to even the slightest chance of recognition, that she is  _not_ disturbed, she swoops in and does something terribly idiotic, shattering this general misconception of mine, outright damning it to the lowest depths of oblivion.  _Fasta vass._  Oh, how the Heavens laugh at me. She manages to obliterate all my honest efforts, however foolish, to consider her sane. Damn you to eternity Hawke. You insane, impossible little woman that corrupts every bit of my being and makes me want to howl in desperation to give me back my brain.

Ah, but words fail.

Indeed, but I should correct myself. Common tongue words fail. There are enough in Tevinter, old Tevane and Arcanum to describe this damned demonic fiend of the black death.  _Femina stulta, damnataque, festev canavoras ce raptum me caput de ultima capitis._

I am shaking my head, biting at my lip. I feel the blood coming out. Nectar of the old gods, it is the blood, was it not… Kevesh. Why am I even thinking about such things now?

I've learnt lessons. Granted, not very well. I only hate to see her die.

And this damned overgrown hair itching my forehead and my nose like bloody spears,  _futueres in profundissimem carnem, vishante capillatura._

I should cut it. Cut it all out. At least it would strip me of taking much notice or remembering that the ritual from which my being was born, my miscreation and first memory, was so deeply agonizing that it shocked the very colour off the hair on top of my head. And other hair? It is gone. It never grows anywhere on my body. I feel like a damned woman.  _Kaffas._

I glanced rapidly in disgust at my reflection in the window; never did the moonlight flatter me so little as in this moment, if it ever did so, in my foolish misconceptions that I should believe Hawke and her very rare flatteries. I turned my head to my right and beheld Hawke's sword. Oh, you think she took it with her?  _That_ 's how grand and frustrating the gravity of the situation is. She didn't even take her sword. I carried it here, even though in my anger I would have very much enjoyed to toss right it in the sewers.

I couldn't get over the sight of that sword. It was as unique as her, or lest I wouldn't exaggerate – rare. Basilisk skin steel, the spitting image of a kitchen knife magnified some thirty times larger, dark and maintained in the perfect condition. She would sharpen it on a regular basis with the same glorious mastery as her ruthless techniques and powerful strikes. She could teach the gods of war what fighting was. Of course, right now – in a fair fight, with my inhibitions so little in control, I could kill her, I swear I could.

To this very night of my life, some seven, maybe nine years of my life, I can't even tell – but for two and about a half now if I am correct in my frenzy, I still have a weakness for this very sword. Which makes me feel like some sort of freak, replacing her with an object to delight my fancy in her absence because that is all I can behold of her at the moment. Fasta vass. I was troubled, panic-stricken.

The blood red band wrapped around its pummel, to be more precise, made it so special. It reminded me of her hair and of fire, a symbol of her resistance and liberation. Ah, why does it haunt me?

I went over and grabbed the sword leaning against the wall next to my own. Mine was quite fitting of my despicable self. She had quite the keen eye in choosing it for me. Yes, it was a gift from her, one of many that I had come to accept with gratitude. The last gift from her was a journal. I thought it was a joke, I became angry, then finally swallowed my foolish drive to protest and thanked her properly. She always managed to make me shut up and accept. Because she knew that  **I** did not desire sympathy. I desired understanding and that is all she did allow herself to give me. She said she might not have been able to return my memories, but this could help me make new ones. And oh, how many memories I had already had and cherished and all were of her. How many I had wished and still wish to create if she would but allow me to.

But I don't know if I could be the naive one for long. I was ecstatic, of course. For the journal, for the sword. I had not merely a sword, but one specially made for me, as I understand. And it was not a waste of money, I dare say.

It was much different than the usual Tevinter form of swords. Tevinters made their swords in a narrow V shape, a testament to sharpness and symmetry, and ultimately, the inevitable symbol of perfection.

But this sword was much perfection in itself. Clean silver steel, rectangular, only at the very tip ending in small and sharp, and it bore many long and beautiful engravings. It shimmered in the light, which I enjoyed. And the pummel as straight, neat and black. Perfect.

Ah, but of course, that one separating detail did prevail – I was not perfect like this sword was. Memory would jolt me only to release me. Wasn't there a code to which I should remain faithful that somehow dictated these were artful lies? What I held so dearly, her memory, all of them. Holding onto them like a child. I couldn't get it clear in my head, and all around me was such happiness, yes, happiness. It seemed impossible that these simple acts of effortless communication between us could mask such absence, that it was ultimately not enough for her to just listen to me, the lack thereof. I am terrible. I didn't believe it.

Yet all pleasure to me was suspect. I was dazzled when I could not give in, and overcome when I did surrender, and as the days followed I surrendered with ever greater ease all the time, as you can see.

Such trust. Of course, I was wolfish to the others, and pretty much wolf to myself. But how she could turn me into a little lamb. I did not hate it – she did not make me feel like her slave. By far, on the contrary. She always pressed without a word, through all her bone-hard actions, just how free I was.

Well, no more. No more, no more, no more. Fear and worry, terrible anguish had swallowed me whole and thrown me forth here, holding Hawke's sword, and after examining the simplicity of the basilisk skin, I untangled the red band from its pummel.

I held it in my hand, shimmering blood red in the light of the brass lamp. I probably looked perplexed. But I rolled my eyes, almost hissing at myself – Fool. Just do it.

Not only did I like it, but it was the only thing to help me at the moment. I took a hold of the little overgrown hair and brought it whole at the back of my head, wrapping the red band around it to hold it in place. Well now, with this thick band, there was almost no hair to be held by it, but fastened it harder and it the material narrowed and finally, ignoring the many threads of hair that quickly got out of the small tail and again, back in my face, I took a seat at the desk and opened the journal.

I did not get to write a lot. Apart from her only sentence on the first page

_Moving on a simple thing – what it leaves behind is hard._

_You know the sleeping feel no more pain, and the living, they are scarred._

_But take a breath, look around. Start anew, start about._

_Get to work, go to bed. Get a life, get a grip._

_It's the time of your life, yours alone and only yours_

_In the garden of your heart, where the tree of life grows._

_So, please smile when you think about me. I try, I try. I know. Let it be._

_These are the last words_

_I'll ever speak_

And the first words I had written, the only sentence I dared to write and in so, ruin the page with my hideous penmanship :  _And they'll set me free._

I started to write.

"So long as one does not feel that one is in some way dependent, one considers himself independent –a false conclusion that shows how proud a man can be, how eager for dominion. For he hereby assumes he would always be sure to observe and recognize dependence so soon as he suffered it, the preliminary hypothesis being that he generally lives in independence, and that, should he lose that independence for once in a way, he would immediately detect a contrary sensation. That is I and that is Hawke. Or at least I brought myself to think so about the nature of her fear, because just as I, she was so fiercely independent.

Suppose however, the reverse to be true – that he is always living in a complex state of dependence, but thinks himself free where, through long habit, he no longer feels the weight of the chain? He only suffers from new chains, and 'free will' really means nothing more than an absence of feeling of new chains. Was that also true for me?"

I struggled and as soon as I finished the paragraph, I realized that my writing started calm and careful and ended aggressive and scribbled, just like hers. And now I understand why.

Because we two are such cerebral beings that we simply have no hope for possessing even the slightest bit of emotional intelligence. And that is very dangerous. I wrote this and continued. Why dangerous, you may ask? The answer is that I was now more than ever susceptible to love, and when seen with loving eyes I knew it somehow and at this moment, in not knowing where she was, it was killing me and I had to slow the very beats of my heart which was pumping in my chest like a Chantry bell.

Words started coming to me, memories, lines of old. I wanted to write them down, lest I ever forget, lest I become even more of an idiot than my present excelling at being one.

For reddish locks such as these, for eyes of the deepest brown and most understanding green. For skin like the fresh cream of the milk in the morning; for lips indistinguishable from the petals of a rose.

_A memory_. "How long do you think I've wandered this Earth?" she asked angrily. "Do you know how many times it had crossed my mind in carelessness and wanton temper to seek somebody that could even for a second, even for just one sodding second, understand me? And get closer to that being? But did not find one and did not do it just for sake of it either, Fenris. Not until my eyes fell upon you."

I wrote in my own words now – "I was hardly immune to her appeal. At times, I found it downright difficult to be in her presence, so fresh and lovely and inviting did she seem. She had a way of looking luscious in austere garments, her breasts large and high, her legs rounded and tapered exquisitely beneath her modest hem. There were times in which I became miserable in my desire for her. I cursed the fact that fear had not yet delivered me from such torment and boyish desire, and did all that I could so that she might never guess. I think she knew it, however, and in her own way, she was merciless."

_Another memory_. I was in awe of her and I needed her. But in our verbal combat, I had always, no matter how emotional, played the role of the superior mind who was in no need of her seemingly irrational discourse, which I made it to appear so as if I was talking to a child, only to be overthrown with the same logic, with my own weapon. And always with evident affection. I remember the very day she gave me her strength. How she argued with me. She said, "Don't make a religion of reason and logic. Because in the passage of time reason may fail you and when it does, you may find yourself taking refuge in madness." I was so offended by these words coming from the mouth of this beautiful woman whose eyes so entranced me that I could scarce follow her thoughts.

_Another._ "Your eyes are green when the fire catches them," I wanted to say once to you. "Oh, but they are lustrous and dark, two glossy mirrors in which I see myself even as they keep their secrets, these dark portals of a rich soul."

Perhaps. Don't expect wisdom from me as it might come from you, or the Father you quote on so many occasions with perfect memory.

"You draw me to you, to make you write," you said.

"Why?" I asked in confusion, because your remark was abruptly said and without much further ado, even if it bore necessity for it.

You smiled patiently, your voice was not commanding. "Because you do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written—behind your silence and your suffering."

"You are too romantic, friend," I said, almost regretting how defensive I was.

You waited patiently. I think you could feel the tumult in me, the shivering of my soul in the face of so much new emotion.

"It's such a small story," I said. I saw images, memories, moments, the stuff that can incite or kill souls to inaction as well as creation. But then I saw the very faintest possibility of faith.

I think you already knew the answer. You knew what I would do when I did not.

You smiled discreetly, but you were eager and waiting. I looked at you and thought of trying to write it, write it all out . . .

"You want me to leave now, don't you?" you said. You rose, collected your rain-spattered coat and bent over gracefully kiss my forehead.

My hands were clutching, one at the journal and one at your hand.

"No," I said without further ado, "I can't let you."

Why do I have to remember these things? Shove them on a piece of paper as if I am writing the chronicles of my life?

When she painted me, towards the end, I went to her because I couldn't control myself anymore. I was full of impatience, my face I kept impassive.

"You barely looked at me. You capture my likeness so keenly from memory," I said as I went to bend towards her sitting on the chair. I saw no reason to talk endlessly. I wanted to give up on my reserve of aloofness, I was tired of planting kisses on her cheek that conveyed only softness and control, I was tired of trying to hold her with a cold embrace, only because the real touch of me would have her destroyed. Thank the gods we were interrupted.

She had never even once touched my markings. I found it a bit too poetic, but I was far from ungrateful. It was even miraculous for me that I allowed anyone to touch me, but even so, her touch. Her touch was either soft or a bit of aggressive, but it conveyed goodness to me. It was as if dexterously avoiding the lyrium markings, she touched only what was good of me. But even if she did touch those too, it would have been simple – because everything she touched turned into something good.

Oh, she's not a saint, and I am not a romantic. Understand, I am only speaking facts.

Her magic? Well, I still stumble with my conceptions. It is not as if I am a hypocrite, excusing her and judging everyone else. I always made it clear to her and to our companions that I was not throwing blind accusations on innocents. I was being cautious, because any mage one should fear. Until he proved himself not to be a weak, there was no point in presuming innocence. But even without presumption of such innocence, I did not attack. None of them attacked. That was testament that I was not driven to be blinded by fallacies and generalizations.

Now, for the subject of my fancy – I do not know what to say. I see her as a being, not even a human, let alone a mage. She proved herself, until now, that she was not weak. Although, in my secretiveness, I was concerned. Why? Because although I admired her predicament of rejecting the use of magic, it proved at times that this was dangerous. She only came to me some nights, frustrated and panic-stricken, because she hated training. She had to be honest, she had to train, for the sake of everyone's safety. But I saw how much torment burned in her soul because of it and I didn't know what to do. She, a struggling abstinent mage, came to me, the last person who in the larger scheme of things would not welcome understanding.

But in a way, I did understand. Even more, at times I felt ridiculous, because it seemed as though I was the one bringing sanity to the equation. Sanity, understand, towards the subject of magic. She would become so angry at times as to revolt against it entirely, she would tell me it was a curse and sometimes she wanted to die, but that was no privilege she could allow herself.

And I felt ridiculous and touched by the grandest form of irony – I, Fenris, felt like slapping her across the face to wake her up from this overreaction, this insane protest. Not because I did not want her gone, but because she put so much needless pressure on herself. If she ranted about being fearful of getting possessed, using blood magic, things of this sort, it would have been only sane. But her dejecting reaction and the sum of her contempt was placed upon all magic.

And yet, she was good. She was patient. She took care of me more than she took care of herself, as foolish as it may appear. I couldn't be more grateful.

I remember a conversation of ours on my roof, lying next to each other without any other moves. This was about a year or more ago. I was the shadow and she was the light.

I put my hands nonchalantly under my head and said, "Oh, but I am but a shadow of a man."

She smirked, "And what? Am I supposed to be, the light?"

"Well, not that I put such stock in names, but," I said with a smirk, being for once relaxed. "You could live up to your name, Bianca. It certainly wouldn't be a terrible thing."

Hawke lifted her hand up to the sky, gesturing dramatically, but telling the truth, "And you're the great shadow, lying in a prison, only dreaming to unchain yourself from the brooding, self-loathing, self-destructive man that possesses the shadow, right?"

I hesitated, feeling penetrated, but I couldn't contradict her, "Thus it seems I am terrible at being myself."

"To lie still and think little is the cheapest medicine for all diseases of the soul, and, with the aid of good-will, becomes pleasanter every hour that it is used," Hawke said to me.

My eyebrow arched into surprise, "Another one of your Father's sayings?"

"Actually no. The Hero of Ferelden said it. Or so Anders led me to believe, one very tumultuous night when I sunk in deep brooding."

"You really fancy this woman, do you not?" I asked perceptively.

"I admire the Warden, don't look too much into it," Hawke said confidently.

"There is danger in admiration," I said calmly. "From excessive admiration for the virtues of others one can lose the sense of one's own, and finally, through lack of practice, being too busy in admiring others, lose these virtues themselves."

Hawke grimaced at me, to which I could only smirk and continue my explanation, "The admiration of a quality may be so strong as to deter you from aspiring to possess that quality."

"Then maybe you should admire me," she said and winked playfully. "So you would never wake up crazy or reckless."

I laughed shortly. "In the way you put it, yes, I should admire you."

"There's another way?" she asked.

I coughed defensively, "In the sense that I do, admire you, for other reasons, that are not so pitiable."

She shook her head and grinned. "You're not gonna tell me what those reasons are, will you?"

I turned my head to the night sky and shrugged, "I will let it be a mystery."

She pressed, oh she loved to press only rarely, but effectively, "Well, it certainly doesn't include my magic."

"You are terrible," I rolled my eyes, "you have more disregard for your magic than I generally do. You shed so much irony on me, it's deeply embarrassing."

"Wha?"

"That I…"

"That you?"

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "That a mage saved me, that I enjoy her company. And now, this – that the manner in which this mage rejects her nature stretches to the extent of utter contempt, whereas I only mildly despise it out of mere cautiousness."

She raised an eyebrow. I could feel a psychological analysis coming about. "I could say the same thing about you. Also, I could say the reverse about what you just said."

I lifted my eyebrows. "What?"

"That I am more understanding and merciful of other mages even if I am not so to myself, whereas you are almost in complete lack of it, no? And that  _you_ are too hard on yourself."

"My vision may be flawed, I will not deny that," I said calmly.

"It's a defect of standpoint, not of vision," Hawke said.

I blinked a few times. "What do you mean?"

"We always stand a few paces too close to ourselves and few paces too far from others. Hence we judge others too much in the lump, and ourselves too much by individual, occasional, insignificant features and circumstances. You understand?"

I smirked and said calmly, "It appears we are at the drinking-table of experience."

"Yes it appears so. Rather funny."

I corrected, "Ironic."

"Such a victim of irony, Fenris is," Hawke said sarcastically.

I laughed softly. "I enjoy comedy from time to time. I overly make use of sarcasm, if you haven't noticed. Maybe that's why this keeps happening to me."

She rolled her eyes. "And I was being sarcastic too. You have the great simplicity and the proper past to be a sort of dark comedian."

"Pardon?"

She gestured while she explained, "We slough past actions like the snake sloughs his skin. We are hereby easily seduced into becoming the comedians of our own past, and into throwing the old skin once more about our shoulders. It's not really vanity, as much as it is good-will and understanding towards our older stupid selves."

I turned my head up to the night sky again. "That is… one way of putting it."

Silence.

"Say something," Hawke demanded.

I didn't turn to look at her. "What do you wish me to say?"

"Something."

I smirked. "Something."

"No, not like that," she said and rolled her eyes. "But it's one way to break the ice."

It was then I felt this was amicable silence. "It is all better if we are both equally… forbearing towards each other when for once our reason is silent."

She didn't say anything for a good five seconds. "Huh?"

"Thus we shall avoid losing our tempers in conversation," I said with a playful smirk. "All in good memory of those 'stupid' selves from the past, which were easily 'seduced' into argument and torment. We shall not apply… " I looked at her and gestured, "….mutual stingy thumbscrews in the event of any word sounding unintelligible or revolting from the other. If one does not know exactly how to answer, it is enough to say  _something._ Do you not agree?"

"I do. Those are the reasonable terms on which I hold conversation with any person. It's better than stretching out something past its limits," she said, finishing with a tone that conveyed annoyance.

I agreed, "Yes, during a long talk, the wisest of men becomes a fool once and a simpleton thrice."

"Your moderation is not flattering to those to whom you confess it," Hawke said a bit sarcastically.

I turned my head to my left to look at her, with a nonchalant voice, "Am I, then, to flatter?"

Hawke smiled only faintly. "I thought a man's shadow was his vanity. Surely vanity would never say 'Am I, then, to flatter?' "

I smiled too, "Nor does vanity so far as I am acquainted with it."

Hawke looked at me in awe. "You know, now I see for the first time very clearly how rude I am to you, my dear shadow," she said, but her tone was vague in its intent for mockery, "I have not said a word of my supreme delight in  _hearing_  and not merely… seeing you."

"Oh?" I asked, the corner of my lips slightly drawing a smirk.

She explained subtly in a bold tone,"If you must know, I love shadows, even as I love light. For the existence of beauty of face, clearness of speech, kindliness and firmness in character, the shadow is as necessary as the light."

I rolled my eyes. "Are we to be rivals then?"

Hawke shook her head, "They are not opponents – rather do they hold each other's hands like good friends; and when the light vanishes, the shadow glides after it."

I smirked and deflected, because I would have taken her hand. "Is this a pompous way of saying you enjoy the sound of my voice?"

She also deflected, "Pretty much."

I tried to press on it though, "I think I understand you, although you sometimes express yourself in somewhat  _shadowy_ terms."

Hawke rolled her eyes, "We two give to each other here and there, both mean and peaceful remarks, as a sign of mutual understanding, don't you agree? Obscure phrases which to any third party is meant to be a riddle. And we are good friends, you and I. So enough preambles!"

She rose from her back and got a hold of her notebook and pen.

"Do you wish something of me, then?" I asked subtly with a smirk.

"Some few hundred questions answered, that so annoyingly oppress my little soul," Hawke said confidently, "And the time for you to answer them is perchance but short. Let's see how we may come to an understanding as quickly and peaceably as possible."

I smiled innocently, "But shadows are shier than men. You will not reveal to anyone the manner of our conversation?"

" _The manner_ of our conversation? Maker preserve me from wire-down, literary dialogues! It's not like I'm going to write this down ad litteram. Real dialogue put to parcel is nothing but a sum of false perspectives. Everything is either too long or too short. Yet perhaps, I may reveal the  _point on which_ we have come to an understanding?"

I nodded amicably. "With that I am content. For everyone will only recognize your views once more, and no one will think of the shadow."

Hawke's eyes went in different directions and tilted her head. "Perhaps you are wrong. If they do read it, they would observe in my views more of the shadow than of me."

I grimaced, unimpressed. "More of the shadow than of the light? Is that possible?"

She almost wanted to hit me and I was prepared to defend myself. "Be serious, dear fool! My very first question demands seriousness."

"Ask away," I said nonchalantly.

"You despise the Alienage, and rightfully so; it reminds you of the cruelty elves face every day. But you are not one of them and you act as if they brought it to themselves – it's like you despise them and not the place they reside in – do you think they will look at you as a hypocrite for living in a mansion?"

"Those are a lot of questions," I said in amusement.

"Answer whichever one then," Hawke said nonchalantly.

I sighed and tried to be truthful. "I don't despise them, but I do despise being in that place. They can't help it, but, I don't see them making much effort to stand up for themselves. It's like these elves want to be seen as pitiable low-lives. As for the hypocrisy, no. I think humans are the ones who would be envious of me."

She frowned in curiosity. "Oh?"

I gestured and explained. "Well this 'envy of the gods' as we call it in Tevinter, about elves that become Liberati and get a few privileges for themselves, get by rather well, as it were," I gestured grumpily, "This envy arises when a despised person sets himself on an equality with his superior. In my case now, it is the human nobles in Hightown, and in Tevinter, it is the human magisters or patrons. I am made equal with humans by the favour of fortune. In the Imperial social class system, but just as well in Kirkwall, this envy demands that no one shall have merits above station, where I, an elf, should be thus a low-life, and that his prosperity shall be on a level with his position, more so especially that his self-consciousness shall not outgrow the limits of his rank."

"Oh, you're admitting that you enjoy it, finally?" Hawke asked with a smile.

"I don't enjoy it, not in the strongest sense of the word. But I do have to take pleasure in the small things," I said modestly, looking down. "However, these  _borrowed_ privileges can also arise in many the feeling of 'meritocrasy',horrendously privileged, and I don't dwell in that. I still prefer to lay low."

"Lay so low that your mansion outright falls, no?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"It is my way," I said firmly with a smirk.

"Fenris is unpardonable," Hawke said in amusement.

Ismirked and looked at her with the back of my eye, "You gave him an opportunity of displaying the greatness of his character, and the shadow thus made use of that opportunity," I said with a hint of deliberate arrogance, then my smile bore gratitude, "He will always thank you for that."

"You know you and my Father would have got along so well," Hawke said.

"So you keep subtly pointing," I said in entertainment.

Hawke shook her head and laughed, "Well, I can't help it. You remind me of him. Not for a general stoic attitude, but more of his views and his jokes. Well, you would have probably been annoyed with him for being a mage, but just like with me, you would have come around. I don't know… if not for that, at least for how strongly he felt for elves and slaves in particular."

I frowned, my curiosity risen. "Oh?"

Hawke cleared her throat, and exorted with affection in her eyes, remembering, "Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies."

I looked at her curiously, she continued, "Father. Lothering was the proud town of some three or four elven families because of him, in a way. Two of them were former slaves, if you must know. I didn't know them very well, but I worked for them for a time."

" _You_ worked for  _them_?"

"Yes, I… well. One of the families had five children, only two of them of age at the time. They would leave Lothering once in a while to work as carriers, messengers or cooks for the army, and I would basically come by every day at their house and make sure they ate and drank and didn't set fire to the house. Well, yeah, basically I made sure they were alive and well."

"So you were a babysitter," I smirked with a mocking tone.

"Not much has changed," Hawke stung back with a smirk.

"The other elf I worked for was a master vanguard. At the time, I lacked considerably in control. I would strike with might and not much else and I wasn't quick. He took me in under his wing and developed in me these skills. 'Leviathan', people called him. But he was  _retired_  and he didn't receive students either. I was a special case."

"As always," I said coldly.

"What's that supposed to mean? No, you know what? Doesn't matter," Hawke said. "I'm proud of catching his interest. He used to be deeply unimpressed. A vanguard believes that a good offense is the best defence. Ah, his strikes was so powerful, matched with ruthless technique. I was in awe of him."

I pressed to return. "You said you worked for him."

"Yes. Under his training, I would help him around the house, make deliveries, read him books because he was becoming long-sighted, stuff like that. The dirty work. Oh, but it was all worth it, even doing his laundry."

I raised an eyebrow, imagining it.

"Oh, boohoo. I used to look at the laundry and say 'Don't be sad laundry, nobody's doing me either'."

"Not much has changed," I said calmly.

"I won't lie, 'tis true. I am loner," Hawke said.

I pressed. "What does that have to do with satisfying your needs?"

"I'm too proud to pay for it and much too, hm, what's the nice word for it? Difficult – for a man to lay an eye on me. What, you don't agree?"

"Perhaps," I said flatly.

"And besides, I know how to take care of myself much better than anyone could attempt to."

"So you remain alone," I concluded out loud.

She shrugged and smiled. "And why not? Good things come to those who wait."

I looked at her in curiosity. "You are waiting?"

Hawke shook her head and explained, "No, it's just an expression. I don't hope for such things. If they are to come, let them come."

"I agree. Lying in wait is a waste of energy," I said firmly, looking away.

But I turned my head quickly to her when she started saying, "Until some brat prince comes to sweep me off my feet – and please let it be that way, because I don't want to do the sweeping – I can always just," Hawke said and smirked subtly, "shower my eyes with something I enjoy looking at, then think about it later when I'm alone."

I frowned, because I did not understand, although I had an idea. "Pardon?"

She grimaced in annoyance. "You're deliberately playing dumb."

"I am not."

"Fine."

But I pressed and smirked, feeling boyish and arrogant. "So you think of me?"

"Oh, now you're not playing dumb anymore."

"I was testing something."

"And are you happy with the result?"

"It remains to be seen."

"After I answer your question?"

"Precisely."

Hawke laughed and eyed me confidently. "Ah, but such requests are futile. What good would it do you, if I tell you that?"

"That also remains to be seen."

"You're purposely vague, are you not?"

Ah the smirk on my face. "I find it useful. It pushes you to rush up with the truth and past your deflections."

"Psht. Coward."

"I am not a coward."

"Pansy."

"Incorrect."

She narrowed her eyes. "Prude."

I hesitated and stuttered. "Alright … fair enough."

She smirked confidently and pointed at me. "First step is admitting it."

I was about to poke her. "Then be fair and take that step too."

She shoved her hand in the air as if she yielded. "Very well. I admit I think of you when I'm alone."

The delight in my bones I had to fight so strongly to keep hidden. "See? It wasn't so hard, was it?"

"I beg to differ."

"What?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Never mind."

At that moment, I felt such a grand regret if the subject was changed, and as if I was driven mechanically by nature, I strove to press. "Do you wish to know if the feeling is mutual?" Where did I find the courage, I do not know.

She shook her head and grinned. "No, what good would that do me?"

I answered without thinking. "There are pleasures certainly greater than merely speaking about it, it is true."

She examined me for two seconds in silence and asked, "Are you implying something by that?"

"No, I… " I paused and cleared my throat, "I am simply stating the obvious."

"Which is?"

"That… there are certain pleasures greater than speaking about it?" Perhaps my courage, however miraculous, was simply short-lived.

"Thanks for the repetition."

"You are welcome."

_Terrible._

I tried to remember. Isabela pressed one night, that I am a fool for being so childish, that she can see from miles away how much I wanted Hawke. I told her to keep to her business, but she insisted that she would help. I felt like walking into a trap, but she simply advised me to 'flirt'.

Making advances to Hawke… was like trying to poke a sleeping dragon. I had no idea how.

Now come to think of it, perhaps I was worse. The pirate certainly painted a good picture. "Flirting with Fenris is like flirting with a tree."

Hawke only made a remark faintly when everyone was at the table, "Like the business end of a porcupine."

Should I even dare to remember the nature of such attempts? I'd rather not, but some few scenes come to mind from years ago.

_At Sundermount…_

"Come on Fenris, cheer up, it could be worse."

"What, if I start skipping around the countryside with rainbows and woodland creatures following me will you leave me alone for a minute?"

_Or… on the Wounded Coast._

Hawke once boldly saying, "Meet you at my place later.  _Ga-row._ "

"What are you talking about?"

"It looked like you were giving me the saucy eyebrow just there. The one that totally means you want to do the mattress dance?"

"I was in  _pain._ "

"…"

"…"

Hawke coughed and stepped back. "This is awkward. I'll just stand over there."

"Yes. You do that."

Or…

Hawke winked.

I frowned, "Wh… What?"

"I winked back at you. Didn't you wink?"

"… That was a flinch."

_Or perhaps… in the Bone Pit.._

"Maker's saggy testicles, it's so dark in here," Hawke growled in annoyance.

"You should really invest in fire," I said grumpily.

"Or you could just turn your glow on."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Oh come on, do you want me to stumble over you in here?"

"…Fine."

She laughed in delight. "Be grateful I didn't also hop on your back and said 'Giddy-up my powerful glowing steed! Go into the light!'"

_Or later when Varric and the mage went too far ahead._

She leaned closer to me in the dark, damp cave.

"What are you doing?"

It was too dark to see her face. "Well… it's cold."

"We are in a cave."

"I was thinking, you emit light, so I thought you might also… you know. Emit heat?"

"Please go away."

_Or when we got out of the Bone Pit…_

Hawke said, "Drat… The sun is down. And we are still so far away from Kirkwall."

Varric came next to her and shouted, "I know! This is suuuch an issue. What we to do? Walk around blindly into a trap?"

Hawke lifted her eyebrows innocently, "I haven't the faintest clue! What shall we do?"

Then they both eyed me fiendishly. I would have killed them.

"… Of for the love of…" I rolled my eyes and undid the front of my vest, leading the path in utter annoyance. And I could feel Hawke and Varric behind fist-bumping.

_Or in the Deep Roads…_

"Stop trying to hit me," I growled at her in annoyance.

"No," Hawke said childishly.

"Oh, now that I let you touch me it should become a tradition to poke the angry dragon?"

"What can I say, I can't keep my hands off of you," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Why is it such a point of fascination to you? Do you think you can draw energy for yourself from my markings, witch?"

Hawke masked her annoyance and stung back nonchalantly, "No, but you're kind of like a caffeine substitute."

_Or at The Hanged Man…_

"Flip the coin already," Hawke said in annoyance at my drunken slowness.

"If I flip the coin, what are my chances of getting head?"

She laughed for half an hour. To this day I did not get it.

No, it got worse when I was drunk and vaguely sarcastic…

"I think I know how to please a woman."

"Then  _please_  leave me alone."

"I think I can make you very happy."

"Why? Are you leaving?"

"Come on, Hawke. We're both at The Hanged Man when Varric is not even here for a reason."

"Yeah! Let's pick up some girls."

"Come on, Hawke, don't be shy. Ask me out."

"Alright. Get out."

"I can tell that you want me."

"Yes, I want you to leave."

"Fine. I'm going home. If you wish to come, you are welcome."

"Oh, Fenris, you strike me as a man who comes all by himself."

Vishatta. I… need to be alone. Forgive me a moment.

 


	30. Big Bad Fenris

I am back. Forgive me for my departure. I felt too penetrated, as if one dug so deep in memories that one reached the censorship line to the unconscious. And I don't fancy the unconscious.

Now that I've calmed myself down only very little… what was I saying?

Ah, yes. Filling the gaps this impossible woman confused you with. And yet I am no better. I've lost myself in pointless overthinking and flew so far away from the main point that… yes, yes, laugh at me. Perhaps there's some irony in this. Yes, that is nothing new, sadly.

I apologize for my outburst. Since I am not blind with rage for maybe another few moments, I don't seem to see the point in taking over so directly. It would certainly help not straying away from my point as well.

_Banavis fedari._  May the ground rise to meet your feet.

* * *

**Day 3, Piazza Di Azuro, Antiva City**

"You're wasting time. There is no evidence to support that Armand is up to something," Fenris said grumpily as he followed Hawke through the piazza.

"Which is why it's going to be so cool when I turn out to be right," Hawke said cockily.

"What are you intending to do? You wish us to follow him to eternity through this place until maybe, just maybe we find he's up to something?" Fenris asked in annoyance.

"Fenris…" Hawke said with a smile. "Don't you know me by now?"

"Unfortunately…" Fenris said grumpily.

"Ok, he's looking, shht, turn back, pretend you're admiring that monument," Hawke whispered rapidly and turned back.

"… I don't see the point in this," Fenris whispered flatly.

"That's because it's on your head," Hawke said meanly and kept pretending to look at the Procession of Magi.

"Couldn't you simply ask him of his business? You're a veteran at sniffing around where you don't belong," Fenris said grumpily.

"Learned a new word now, did you?" Hawke said in annoyance. "Let's make it a tradition. Word of the day for Fenris's daily word count!"

"I'm afraid to ask what the word of the day is," Fenris said grumpily, looking in different directions as Armand was still wondering around the piazza.

"Hm, something that would suit you," Hawke said in annoyance and nudged him to stop turning his head. "Thundercunt."

"Charming," Fenris said grumpily.

After they've lost themselves in speeches about mages and worldly injustice and after Hawke's charming and graphic tribute to the Maker in plain sight, they caught up with spying on Armand.

He turned around a dark corner in the narrow market street and just when Hawke and Fenris got to it, the only thing they saw was a cloaked figure rapidly vanishing and Armand turning around and eyeing them murderously.

"Oh, fancy meeting you here," Hawke pretended gracefully. "Did you see the deal on Antivan perfumed candles? Very nice."

Armand's brow arched up and could almost reach the heavens. He wasn't buying jack shit.

"I tried to stop her," Fenris said grumpily, blowing her cover with no shame.

"Somehow you always find people to gang up on me," Hawke growled angrily at Fenris.

"Would you stop with the paranoia?" Fenris asked in annoyance. "You reap what you saw if you spy on people. Unsuccessfully."

"You didn't help on purpose," Hawke said angrily. "I will not forget that, Fenris. Your ass is going down, you sodding starlit thundercunt."

Fenris snorted at her creative swears, and by the time they realized they were hissing at each other, Armand rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "What do you want?"

"Oh, just a few million questions answered," Hawke said firmly. "Starting with – how do you get your hair to be so dashing and shiny?"

"I wash it," Armand said sharply. "Any other survey questions?"

"Just one," Hawke said and smiled. "Would you let me help you with whatever you're doing?"

"I imagine involving yourself in other people's business is what you're best at," Armand said grumpily.

"She tends to excel at it, yes," Fenris responded while shaking his head.

" _Helping_ people is what I'm best at. And killing them," Hawke said confidently. "You got anything like that?"

Armand looked at Fenris sharply, seeming like they had exchanged a telepathic agreement. Somewhere on the verge of 'She's not going to let this go, is she?', is what Armand's eyes said and Fenris responding, 'Implausible.'

"Be at the Occhio del Corvo tomorrow night. We will talk there," Armand said sharply.

"Be at the  _what_? Where's that?" Hawke asked in confusion.

"If you don't find it, you're not made up for the job," Armand said flatly and went to turn around. "Now if you would ever so gracefully get off my back?"

"I'll need a ladder," Hawke said sarcastically.

* * *

**Day 3, Nighttime, After the song in the fountain scene**

"What have you learned so far?" Fenris asked with a faint smile.

"Well, that's an arrogant question!" Hawke said in amusement and repeated his question mockingly. "What have you learned?"

"Say whatever comes to mind," Fenris demanded calmly.

Hawke looked away with a deep look which could only mean 'I have no idea where my legs are right now'.

"Are you alright?" Fenris pressed in a soft voice and squeezed her hand tighter. "Hawke."

He put his arm forward as though to embrace her. His eyes were clear and she could see no malice at all in them.

"You've given me courage," she said finally.

"For what, may I ask?" Fenris responded calmly.

"To continue being myself… and all that it implies," Hawke said bitterly while looking down. What a look of wonder came over Fenris's face. He could sense there was a magic implication in her words, but not much else that he could really put his finger on, until she turned her head to him and gave him the rare warm smile she would only give to her closest.

"Do you have all you…" Fenris asked softly, then stuttered, "all you need?"

"I'll give you three guesses," Hawke said with a large grin.

Fenris nodded. What more was there for them to say? He couldn't help it much longer.

She didn't give him long explanations, no sorcery or science, either of which would have been so easy for her.

But as they gazed at each other, it struck them with full force that there had never been moments in their lives such as these, magnified in this very moment, and the message they subtly gave one another was irresistible. So great had been their loneliness, so great had been their longing to be understood.

But now, with all of Antiva City receiving them into its finest wonders, they did not feel such a thing. They had each other to ramble on about anything they desired to, and they both had Varric to share their joys with, even if the burden of their ambiguous relationship remained private.

Indeed, they were enjoying the Perfect Time. Fenris, as a man with much less experience than a tree, and with only less than half of his life perhaps that he could remember, wondered if this corresponded to the prime of life – those years you are strongest and can see with the greatest clarity, those years when you can give your trust most truly to others, and seek to bring about a perfect happiness for yourself.

Hawke – that was the love of his perfect time. Although it was a stunning promise, that of the hunters to always find him no matter where he went. Fenris resolved to ignore his, only for a moment, not to allow it to impede him in the slightest as he enjoyed his life.

Fenris sought to hold her fast to him with his right arm.

"Who are you really?" Hawke asked playfully as he let him slowly drag her closer.

"I'll give you three guesses," Fenris repeated her sarcasm with an evil grin, dragging her closer by the arm until they his eyes could pierce her only inches away.

"Inconceivable! Are you that  _brat prince_ from my dreams?" Hawke asked him sarcastically, raising her voice boldly over the music.

"Perhaps so," Fenris said with an arrogant grin, "if you let me kiss you."

To his astonishment, she allowed it and he bent to kiss her. It was a strong embrace and the heat of his body inflamed her. He covered her with feathery kisses while she held onto his arms as the only pillars of her balance, as if at any moment she would come to an outburst. As if at any moment, she couldn't take it anymore.

* * *

_Alright. Forgive me, but I have to take over shortly._

Then, with a violent throb I realized she could take no more. I drew back, but not before I pressed my lips to hers and held the kiss for a long moment. I felt guilty, but I thanked her with my whole heart in my mind. I had not the slightest doubt that she had been protecting me all this time with her distance. I knew that she had.

Yet it didn't feel like it should. And then I withdrew, powerful, clear-eyed, thinking this was the kiss of my death if I had pressed it further.

Two strong women flickered in her eyes. One wanted to come back to me, the other was keeping her paralyzed. Yes, the two Hawkes inside her that I had come to both enjoy. Her dual nature only made her more insane and impulsive, but at times it managed to fiercely and completely balance her. This was not that time.

In a second, she was gone. She rushed out of my arms and ran for it. More the fool I was, that it did not occur to me in the same second just how ridiculous this was, so I went after her.

"Hawke!" I screamed angrily and ran after her down the street. "Hawke," I shouted again and rushing my pace as fast as my drunken strength and impaired judgement could give me. I was angry. The night was damp and the wind did not help me one bit to clear my head. My legs were tiring out, but I knew that I had all the advantage to overrun her. She turned to the right in a dark alley and there all hell became.

_Kevesh._

* * *

Hawke climbed onto a ladder in the dark alley and hopped onto the roof, overseeing the city and not catching any glimpse of the elf. This was not a good sign. She rushed on the roof and jumped off of it. Although it wasn't a leap of faith, shivers came down her spine as she thrust her sword into the large curtain of the building and went down. As the sword finished cutting the curtain in full, she landed hard, but rather quietly on a bunch of old boxes. It was quiet. Almost too quiet. She tried not to breathe and turned her body around in different directions, because the darkness from the end of the street up until the other end which led to the plaza was much too eerie and silent.

A violent throb pierced her heart as a set of gauntlets caught her by the shoulders and shoved her into the wall. "You are like a child," Fenris's voice came with powerful eyes and a violent frown as he squeezed her shoulders.

She was trembling and panting from fear, but he grew impatient and his softness from just a moment ago came to an end with his shoving her against the wall. "I'm sorry," she said flatly without looking into his eyes.

"You are not," Fenris said angrily.

"Forgive me," she said again, without looking at him.

He had little strength or patience enough to comfort her, but he knew what she needed. It was hitting him again and again like so many violent blows that his world was dashed, that all these moments were always coming to an end he didn't like, that she could slip away at any second and keep him struggling and wondering why in the name of Heaven was her problem.

"You are killing me, Hawke," Fenris growled aggressively. "What do you need of me that I can't give you, hm?" he shouted.

She closed her eyes and scowled, without much defence against his aggressive demeanour, because she understood him. "I don't know what to say. If…"

"Yes, if?"

"If I cannot keep you from running, I run first."

His eyebrows joined into a surprised and sorrowful look, followed by him looking down with a powerful sigh, "Ah, yes, if you cannot protect me."

He fell into silence. Again, it did not seem possible that this had happened to him. His soul was burnt. His spirit was burnt. His will was scarred and his happiness ruined yet again.

"No," Hawke said finally. "We'll do this your way. Let's go back home. I'm sorry. I'm being a prick."

"No, you aren't," he said angrily. "You're only more afraid of being left here alone than you are of going. You're afraid that if you stay behind or you say the wrong thing, I'll never come back to you."

Hawke nodded her head as if Fenris forced her to admit it. Then she scowled. "That's not perfectly it. There are other reasons. But is it so wrong of me to think this way?"

Fenris hesitated and his face remained struck by utter sadness. For a moment it seemed as if he would actually just leave, but then his eyes grew colder and more beautifully calm. He shut his eyes tight and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her close to his chest. "Yes. No."

"Or I don't know," Hawke said in amusement, returning his hug and running a hand through his hair. "Those are the three guesses."

"Perhaps I do not wish to leave," Fenris said flatly, brushing his gauntlet gently on her back. "Perhaps I mean to stay until you tell me to go. Has this ever crossed your mind?"

"Is it such a surprise that it hasn't?" Hawke asked bitterly. "Forget I said anything."

"I can't forget," Fenris said flatly, "I cannot lie to you."

She didn't answer, instead she lay paralyzed in his arms and tried not to burst. He felt it and a bitter frown drew on his face as he put his hand on the back of her head and leaned it against his own. His lips came to her ear softly as he whispered, "It is my fault. I started this."

"Don't give me that," Hawke said angrily and drew back from his embrace. Powerful eyes screamed at him to withdraw his statement. "You think I wouldn't have started it just as well if you hadn't found the courage?"

His eyes went to their lower right in a sad frown as he hesitated, "No, I… yes, perhaps you would have."

"I wonder who's the bigger idiot," Hawke said angrily. "Me for running for your sake or you for lying to yourself that you wouldn't."

Her statement was bold, not very accusatory, but it struck a rage in him that drew all over his dark impatient face. "Really, truly, that's your excuse?" Fenris shouted and stretched his arms. "I had a few dozen enough opportunities to run like the wind and be done with Kirkwall."

"It's not that," Hawke said and shook her head. "Although you said quite enough times that you were thinking of leaving."

"Then what?" Fenris growled sharply. "Am I supposed to believe you are struck with guilt? That you're some former blood mage seeking penitence? Or perhaps a former assassin with extreme rage issues? What? What could it be that would keep me from accepting you little impossible woman?"

Hawke appeared to be hit again and again by those words and grew tired. She had her eyes closed and frowning, then finally interrupted him. "Shut up."

"And I refuse," Fenris retorted angrily. "What now? You wish me to leave?"

"No," Hawke said quickly. "Not unless you are certain that's the wisest choice."

"You are uncertain," Fenris said perceptively. She didn't answer, more so just looking in different directions and swallowing heavily. "Perhaps I need to make it clearer for you," Fenris said angrily and closed her mouth with his lips in a harrowing second. It was a long kiss, powerful and soft, that made the ground simply move away from under her feet. There was no lust or malice in it, not even anger. This was the time to give him a sign. Either continue or withdraw. The wait was not painful. As soon as Fenris stopped from pressing his lips on hers any longer in the kiss, she grabbed his back and brought him back to her. Mother of permissions, she was tired of this ordeal, but this wasn't over, she knew it.

Regardless, she tightened her grip and left him with his guard down in his surprise, forcing his mouth open and in a split second, his tongue moved serpentlike inside. He held her neck with his left hand and over and over again, he kissed her, as though that and only that were the most eloquent gesture in the world. This strange intimacy started him, but he did not think to drive away. He understood once more, that this was how men kiss, roughly, with gruff and heated gestures and tight embraces. These turned into rapacious kisses and she knew it, but she didn't stop it and the texture of her baby soft skin and of her thick red hair had driven him to madness, so he wouldn't stop either. Even if they were leading nowhere.

Yes, he couldn't stop himself from showing her with actions how he felt. Words failed him, even though he knew words were the thing she was waiting for. She expected that for her to trust him, he would have to tell her the story of his tormented life, whatever was eating him inside and that his eyes always leaked away through the cracks of his mask whenever they would talk. He wanted to, he desperately wanted to. He knew she would understand, but that did not help his conscience much. Because it was a shame on his life, a stain he would never wipe and what was worse, she wouldn't look at him the same way if she knew.

So in this moment, he resolved to once more ignore this and focus on her fear, because as she said, his problems was not the only stinging factor in their torturing equation. And he desperately wished her problems to be his. Perhaps he wasn't clear enough. He needed to take his patience with it, just as well as she had the patience for him.

But until then, he visited on her his truthful kiss, his sweet and rough kisses, his kisses of need and he gave himself to her with no reserve.  _Almost_  none, for he wouldn't give up.

* * *

_(After this comes Hawke's memory of the hot encounter, ending in them both trying to tease the truth out of each other, Fenris pressing for her to say the word, only to give up and continue the ordeal physically and him doing something to Hawke with his lyrium glow.)_

* * *

Blinded and shaking, she burst into loud moans covered by Fenris's hand. Dead and fainted she was, from the drunkenness and from everything he had put her through. Although he had to admit, the delight in his bones was beyond cosmic proportions as well his grin as he got her to powerfully climax with his ability, despite her wide reserves of resistance. Yes, his grin was stretching back to Kirkwall and his eyes were bathing in devilish triumph.

He carried her back to her room and placed her carefully on the bed, but her arm shoved a lamp away and the creaking sound made her spring back only faintly to consciousness.

Fenris quickly placed the lamp back on the nightstand until whole room caught on fire and saw Hawke's arm stretching at him faintly. "Fenris…"

"Go back to sleep," he said calmly and refused to touch her. " _Now_ I'm done with you for the night," he joked in amusement, remembering his victory.

She caught his hand aggressively, in a fit of sudden strength coming back to her, and dragged him to sit on the edge of the bed next to her as only she remained lying down. "Stay."

"Not a very wise choice," Fenris said carefully, trying not to laugh at how beaten she was.

"Do I have to beg?" Hawke muttered angrily through her sleepiness.

"So that's where you two were," Varric's voice startled Fenris and he quickly got up from the bed and sat straight as if a knight-captain suddenly entered the room and he was merely a soldier honouring his role.

"Teddybear," Hawke muttered happily, pointing at Varric's pajamas.

The dwarf looked down as if he had forgotten what he was wearing, a blue shirt and pants with a lion embroidery. He scowled ferociously, "It's a lion."

"It is  _not_ ," Hawke said drunkenly. "Fenris, do you see a lion?"

Fenris smirked with an umimpressed look and crossed his arms, "You are right, all I see is a teddybear."

"Oh piss off," Varric said angrily. "You're both seeing fluffy animals because you've been cuddling and canoodling behind my back."

"We were  _what_?" Hawke asked in confusion. "Canoo-what?"

"It seems Hawke is not the only one who is paranoid in our little group," Fenris deflected masterfully.

"Then what are you doing here?" Varric asked with lifted impassive eyebrows, waiting for a perfectly reasonable lie from them.

"Isn't it obvious? She's drunk as a boiled owl," Fenris stated unperturbed and pointed at her calmly.

"Ah, but where were you before that, hm?" Varric interrogated charmingly.

"I killed a man, got tormented by guilt, we strolled around the city and listened to some Antivan tenor sing his lungs out in the square and then, overcome and energized with such Antivan romance, I made out with him in a dark alley. It was so hot and poetic," Hawke said with a serious but drunken tone.

Varric looked at her for five seconds in silence. "Bullshit." Fenris contained his smirk because she managed yet again to lie by using the truth.

"Get your ass here," Hawke said drunkenly and grabbed Varric forcefully by the arm, dragging him on the bed. Then she put a leg over him and encaged him viciously in her drunken sleep.

Varric seemed perplexed and panic-stricken, and looked at Fenris, exchanging a telepathic look.  _So… I guess I'm screwed,_ Varric's terrified look said.  _That you are my friend, that you are,_  Fenris's arrogant smirk said.  _Alright then… see you in the morning, if I'm alive,_ Varric said telepathically. Whatever Fenris responded with his mind, the dwarf couldn't make out.

In truth, what went through Fenris's mind as he uncrossed his arms and left the room was a grand bunch of Tevinter curses in a walk of defeat, because he lost his chance and Varric got to take care of drunken Hawke in the end because of his stupid hesitations.

* * *

**The next morning**

"What will we do with a drunken sailor? What will we do with a drunken sailor? What will we do with a drunken sailor early in the mooorning," Hawke sang mockingly as Isabela came ravished, messy hair and deeply hungover in the tables room of the inn.

"Oh shut it," Isabela muttered grumpily and sat down at the table with all of them.

"Nonsense, Varric back me up here," Hawke said cockily and continued in a chorus, "Way hay and up she rises! Way hay and up she rises! Way hay and up she rises early in the morning!"

"Maker's balls," Isabela said angrily as Armand and Fenris laughed at her softly.

Varric and Hawke started waving and swaying mockingly. "Shave her belly with a rusty razor! Shave her belly with a rusty razor! Shave her belly with a rusty razor early in the morning!"

Dorian joined in the choir. "Put her in the bed with the captain's daughter! Put her in the bed with the captain's daughter! Put her in the bed with the captain's daughter early in the morning!"

Isabela put her hands over her ears, hungover and beaten as a wheel-barrow and shut her eyes tight, but they continued mercilessly. "Way hay and up she rises! Way hay and up she rises! Way hay and up she rises early the morning!"

"That's what we do with a drunken sailor! That's what we do with a drunken sailor! That's what we do with a drunken sailor early in the morning!"

Finally, Isabela started laughing to herself and they gave her a huge cup of Antivan coffee. "No? You want a yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum?" Hawke asked innocently and Isabela scowled at her. "No?"

Isabela muttered grumpily, "And here come the pirate jokes."

"Songs, my dear, songs," Hawke corrected. "Yar har fiddle dee dee, being a pirate is alright with me, do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate!

Varric joined her eagerly. "Yo ho ahoy and avast, being a priate is really badass, hang the black flag at the end of the mast, you are a pirate!"

"Maker kill me now," Isabela said and banged her head into the table.

"Aw, woman, pull yourself together," Hawke said firmly. "What kind of flowers do you get a pirate who can't remember how to tie a rope?"

"What…" Isabela muttered grumpily.

"Forget-me-knots," Hawke said and burst into laughter. "Arrrr."

"Do you know what a pirate thinks of this joke?" Isabela asked with an umimpressed tone. "It's g _arrrr_ bage."

"Oh, I have a better joke. A story, actually," Varric said in amusement. "Care to hear it, perchance it might impress you snobby little pirate?"

"Fine," Isabela said flatly. "But no more  _arrr_ -jokes."

"Arrright," Varric said mockingly. "So, a large Humpback whale was lazily enjoying a beautiful day when he sees a female Humpback whale just a little ways off in the distance. He thought to himself 'Oh, matey, how do I impress this luscious piece of voluptuous meat?'" Varric narrated charmingly and everyone listened. "He swims over to her and breeches the surface, showing off he large hump on his back, but the lady whale seemed deeply unimpressed as she breached and showed a larger more well-formed… hump, herself." The dwarf cleared his throat and resumed charmingly, "Now, a little embarrassed, he tries again to impress her by taking a breath and blowing a huge cloud of mist and water with a really nice rainbow glowing through it. Once again, she looked unimpressed and she blew a larger cloud of mist, with a more beautiful rainbow."

"I can already tell this isn't going anywhere pleasant," Fenris said grumpily, but still entertained by the story.

"Shht, shht," Hawke hissed childishly at him and gestured for Varric to continue.

Varric smirked and resumed, "Now clearly agitated, the guy whale sees a navel vessel in the distance and races off towards it. Just before he collides with the ship, he dives," Varric kept gesturing dramatically, "jumps out of the water and as he sails over the bow of the ship, he plucks a sailor off the deck and in one gulp swallows him whole!"

"Oh, I think I know where this is going," Hawke said childishly and Varric raised a palm knightly to stop her from her cheer.

"He swam back to her very proud of himself, only to find the female object of his attentions with a horrifying and disgusted look on her face…" Varric lifted his eyebrows and smirked, "As she swam off she said, 'I'll hump, I'll blow, BUT I WON'T SWALLOW SEAMEN!'"

* * *

**Later that day**

Hawke collected Varric, Isabela and Fenris from each place she knew they would be in. Although she didn't find most of them exactly where she thought they would be. Varric and Fenris were surprisingly… lying on the garden roof of the palazzo on some strange flat chair-beds, drinking some green-looking things and both of them with their chests out in the open. Varric looked confident and happy, lying down with no shame, whereas Fenris had one arm across his face with his vest open and seeming to be catching roots or sinking in the chair-bed like a beaten caterpillar. When she came they were startled and she started laughing to bits.

"Today we're expecting high chances of cloudy skies, damp air and a whole lotta raining men," Hawke said in amusement as Fenris started covering himself up and Varric only cockily showed his chest even more.

Hawke explained that she convinced Armand to let her help him with his business and issued Varric to find this "Occhio Del Corvo" by nightfall. Isabela was not eager at all to come, within good reason of course, but Hawke growled at her so fiercely, overrun with her frustration that she was never going to actually help her in anything, despite Hawke's efforts to help  _her_. They started arguing in the middle of the street and Hawke raised her palm as she often did to issue her companions to stop. She told Isabela to get out of her sight, and that's what she did.

Varric insisted that all of them put on cloaks for their own good if they were indeed going to involve themselves into Crow business. Hawke put on a powerfully blue coat with red embroideries, the same powerful blue pants, a white shirt and a crimson waist girdle in which she stuck a few knives, then cloaked herself playfully and winked at them. She equipped herself with two longswords in sheaths by her sides that she kept hidden. Yes, greatswords were not going to help in this situation, no one could possibly hide such a weapon.

Fenris didn't approve of changing tactics so suddenly, especially in a place that would be twice as strange and dangerous than Kirkwall, but eventually complied and equipped himself with two hidden longswords and put on a black shirt and over it a dark coat, with a somewhat midnight violet waistband. More so, to everyone's surprise and amusement, he put on a black and whitish grey vertical-lined pair of Antivan pants Hawke playfully suggested some days before would look good on him. She had no idea he actually bought them from the market. Yes, the pants were a much bigger surprise than him putting on leather boots, for sure. The violet waist band was indeed, a sign of mockery directed at her for not having the courage to wear such a color. A sign of mockery which she rightfully received through his evil grin as he cloaked himself and looked away.

Varric didn't need much change to his appearance. He said in amusement that he should match Broody's look and put on a pair of white and pale green vertical-lined pants and a brown cloak with a red scarf. Yes… they all looked like the perfect candidates for the Cirque du so Gay, Hawke said. They hailed a gondola soon enough and by the time they found their way to Occhio Del Corvo, the sun had set.

* * *

**Sunset, Via della Morte Nera**

The night as wet and dark, cicadas sang in the dark as they often do, to no clock, in Antiva City.

They followed Hawke. Up and down they went, walking like regular men among the streets, then only to climb on pipes and sneak through buildings so they would be sure nobody else followed them.

Perhaps others felt this way when they hunt the big beasts of the forest and of the jungle. For Hawke, as they went down the stairs from the ceiling into a darkened courtyard of this new and highly decorated palazzo, it was rabid excitement. Men were going to die. Men would be murdered. Men who were bad, men who had wronged innocents. At least to her understanding.

No care now about the soil, the damp, the threat of disease. No care now whether the crawling things of the night came near. No care now what men might think who peeped from their windows. No care now for the lateness of the hour. Look at me, stars. Look at me, as I look at you.

Fenris tried to shut himself up and remained in a calm and cold lack of protest, because he understood what Hawke was doing, apart from the usual reason why she involved herself in such situations. He knew of her struggle that struck into her soul after Danny's death, she was panic-stricken and tormented by the ghost of her past and her present – that she wanted to be more than a mage, she wanted be equal to him, to Varric and any other man who only made use of physical means to fight. She wanted to do good far and wide in her own way. For them it was a fighter life and it was as joyful as it was sorrowful. The demons of her past were magnified and she kept pushing them down as much as she could.

Silently, secretively, without further ado, she had set the tone for her approach to the world. She would wander these places which were foreign to her, including Kirkwall when they would return, with the fervor of a Ferelden saint. She would increase in understanding, in goodness and compassion for others, just like her soul had dictated from the very beginning. And she would never cease to put a pressure on herself to be exactly what she believed was good.

"We must be careful," Fenris finally said as they sneaked quietly between every roof and landed somewhere in a garden.

"No need to worry," Hawke said firmly. "I trust Armand to show up. Well, as soon as we find the right place."

"This certainly looks like the dark, creepy kind of beautifully haunting place to be called Occhio del Corvo. Well, that and the fact that there's a one-eyed raven statue right there," Varric said awkwardly and pointed above at the grand façade of the building behind them.

"It's almost too quiet here," Fenris said in a low voice. "I do not like this."

"Have faith, you stubborn little man," Hawke whispered as they leaned over the wall in a shadowy corner.

Fenris gave a sad sigh and looked away, his face as aloof and unbending as before, only now Hawke sensed the fervor and thick blood flowing through his veins with fear. That once again, as it had been the night before, was pumped full of living heat, his heart throbbing in his chest but kept under control in the safety of her and Varric's company, which had no doubt been his late repast this same evening.

Strident perfume rose from the gardens right and left, from red and purple bougainvilleas and geranum a grandi fiori, as the Antivan call them here, rampant flowers shimmering and smelling infinitely sweet, and the wild irises stabbing upwards like blades out of the dark grass, throaty petals monstrously big, battering themselves on old walls and concrete steps. There were also little white, almost transparent flowers called Lunaria because they resembled almost perfectly shapely moons. And then as always there were roses, roses of old women and roses of the young, roses too whole for the tropical night, roses coated here with poison.

She looked at the garden with its damp, sweet park of green down the middle, a park thick with those carefully planted flowers and old gnarled and humble, bending trees. Then back up at the sky. Stay with me, beauteous stars, her face seemed to beg, and let me never seek to fathom this fusion of light and sound, but only give myself to it utterly and unquestionably. The stars were large and infinite in their cold majestic light, compared to the hotness and dampness of the Antivan street. And slowly, the actual dark night after sunset was descending upon them with only one great glorious illumination remaining.

They didn't look at the canals much after this first long and memorable glimpse. They looked up at Heaven and her court of mythical creatures fixed forever in the all powerful and inscrutable stars. Ink black was the night beyond them, and they so like jewels that old poetry came back to them, the sound even of hymns sung only by men who had lost all fear for war.

The whole picture moved with the subtle river winds, and wet mist swirled but would not fall into rain itself, and tiny green leaves drifted down like wilting ashes to the ground. Soft soft northern summer. Even the sky seemed pregnant with the season, lowering yet blushing with reflected light, giving birth to the mist from all its pores.

She smiled. Fenris felt her smile, and as the light of the moon grew brighter still and ever closer, as though it were an ocean of itself, the sky of stars, he felt a great saving coolness over all his limbs.

"Stay here," Fenris said calmly. "I will roam over the corner and see if anybody followed us."

Hawke hesitated as he already started walking away, then finally whispered, "Be careful." He looked only half-way back at her and nodded knightly, then sneaked quietly against the wall and around the corner.

"Hawke, not that I'm not fiercely enjoying the roguish adventurous scenario and these badass looking clothes, but…" Varric started awkwardly.

"But?" Hawke asked in amusement. "You're retired?"

"No, no," Varric said sweetly in a frown. "Just wondering if those shiny little stars up there decided this is the last time I'll ever see them."

"You're such a fatalist," Hawke said warmly and brushed his shoulder. "Nobody's dying on me, you got it? That includes you and your masterful roguish efforts."

"Oh, make no mistake," Varric started cockily. "Bianca and I are good to go." Hawke looked at him firmly and squeezed his hand and patted his crossbow as if she blessed him coldly.

They suddenly heard a sinister laughter, rumbling like low thunder over the moist soft sounds of the flutes and cicadas in the distance. A long, dry cruel laugh.

Two resembling dark cloaked figures came out of nowhere from above and landed dexterously on the narrow and high black gates in front of the garden. Only now did they realize there was also a black crow sculpted in the upper middle of the gates. The figures held onto the fence as they came down and landed again very quietly and gracefully with a roll in the air and another roll-over on the ground at a fine distance from them. Hawke held onto the sheaths just in case, but it became very clear that these were Armand and his  _friend._

She approached them with no fear as she saw the strips of red hair coming from underneath Armand's hood. His friend had let the hood of his cape fall, and his hair was wondrously shaped in its prodigious length. He looked like some elven god of beauty, with his glistening and relaxed amber eyes, lean nose and mild full mouth, and the blond hair parted so cleanly in the middle, and the whole mass of it alive from the damp of the night. His tight, polished brown face startled her. He looked lacquered all over, waxed, buffed, and she thought of spicy things, of the meat of candied nuts, and delicious aromas, of chocolates sweet with sugar and dark rich butterscotch, and it seemed a good thing suddenly to maybe stop staring at him.

"I see you've found this place after all," Armand said flatly in a quiet voice.

"Ah, I believe there is no doubt to be put in Ferelden warriors such as herself, Armand," the handsome elf said in a perfect Antivan accent. "Of course such thoughts are moot. One must never put so much trust in any soul they do not wish simply to kill."

Hawke raised an eyebrow and uncovered her head too, looking the man straight in the eye and preparing to speak. "I see you've already heard a great deal about me," Hawke said sarcastically as she glanced fiendishly at Armand. "My name is Hawke. And you must be the  _friend_  who needs help."

"Indeed I am," the blonde elf said charmingly with a deep voice. "I am Adonis, former assassin and professional good-doer with no country, as it were. My pleasure," he said and bowed courteously.

Hawke tried not to snort at his fake name, but decided to lay it low for a while. Her suspicions to who he was were enough to make an outburst with would only appear to sound with all the rancor of an accusation.

"So what is that you need done?" Hawke asked calmly. "This is no Crow headquarters, that much is clear."

"Oh, if it were, we would be dead by now, no doubt," the elf said firmly. He was wearing a curious black coat with very narrow grey lines, black gloves with fine shimmering and sharp jewels on the knuckles, undoubtedly hiding tiny blades inside and a belt with so many pockets one could only assume was full of all the poisons, explosives and knives in the world. "But enough of this, we still have time to chit-chat. What do you think of my glorious Antiva City?"

"From a first glimpse, it is as beautiful as a city could get," Hawke said warmly, but resumed her cold look which impressed the man, "and seems a place singularly devoid of horrors, a warm home even for its well-dressed and clever beggars, a hive of prosperity and vehement passion as well as staggering wealth. But it is not so, is it?"

"Ah, yes, one could get so tired to form questions, to say it is not possible, this combination of the fleshly, cruel and the beatific. I cannot even find eloquent words for it. The nakedness of the boy angels painted on the facades, the sweet sound of the flutes, the rain and the black-haired beauties. It is enchanting and innocent, but you cannot believe it. It is a lie of Antiva, a lie of the North, a lie of the Devil himself."

"The Devil?" Hawke asked in confusion.

"It is what we call the strongest of pride demons, but it is not important," the elf explained calmly.

"Wait here," Armand said sharply. "I think it's time." Hawke frowned in confusion, but the blonde elf gave her an assuring look as to wait because Armand knew what he was doing. He climbed on a pipe and disappeared somewhere in the building.

"So you're a 'good-doer'," Hawke said awkwardly, looking back at the elf.

"Hawke, is it?" She nodded and the elf resumed charmingly, "There is no good that is founded in suffering and cruelty; there is no good that must root itself in the privation of little children, women and men stripped of their liberty. I can see in you, you are a good-doer yourself, are you not?"

"An army of mercenaries could not have felt less compassion for such despicable creatures," Hawke said firmly about the Crows. "Well, perhaps Antivans have more feeling for their enemy than I."

He laughed. His eyes crinkled at the edges, and his face was cheerful and sweet. His hair kept its elven luster. How fine he would have been if freed from the dictates of this nightmare. "We like to see the blood flow you and I. I don't really fancy Antivans anyway, and I most certainly want swift vengeance."

"So you search the mind for a crime that can justify your predatory feelings?" Hawke asked in suspicion.

The elf laughed again. "It is my way, or so I am told. But no, in all seriousness, all I desire is to right the wrongs that have been done to some few people here. And who knows – as I seem to always be blessed by luck, I might even manage to overthrow this entire guild one day."

"Oh, I get it. You want to punish them," Hawke said gently. "To punish them all for the vain and blasphemous deeds, for the worldly and godless life they made you two live."

"Well, what is the Void compared to this, really?" the elf responded in entertainment with a luscious grin. "Ah, so the executioners said a thousand times when they led heretics to the stake. 'What are the fires of the Inferno to this brief suffering?' Oh, such self-serving and arrogant lies, no?"

Hawke smiled, for she agreed to this elf's ranting. "You think so?"

The elf chuckled and shook his head. "Lay caution on your thoughts, though, yes?" the elf said charmingly. "For there are those who can pick your mind barren of all its thoughts. Such the Crows are. There may be no Void or Inferno for them, but there will be eternal suffering, of that I am sure. Their nights of luxury and lasciviousness are over. The truth awaits them soon enough."

"Antiva is  _creepy_ ," Varric said simply, because he was getting, and rightfully so, crept out by this conversation.

"Yes, well, it is Antiva City after all, my dwarven friend," the blonde elf laughed with bitter joy. "This place must erase from my mind, at least for a while, the clotted torment of some earlier existence, some congestion of all truths that I would not face. Now it is the time to face them, all in this city's eternal beauty and lies."

Fenris finally came from the shadows and joined them, eyeing then the blond elf with deep suspicion as he came next to him and Hawke.

"Oh, that is  _not_ fair," the blonde elf said as he looked up at Fenris. He was much taller than ordinary elves.

"And you are?" Fenris asked coldly.

The elf smiled, catching onto something in his posture slightly going in front of Hawke and said to Fenris, "Oh, look at dees little morsel before me. Tell me, gorgeous man, have you ever danced with knives under dark silk skies by the moonlight?"

"This is uh, Adonis. Adonis this is Fenris," Hawke said trying not to laugh, then her mouth drew an evil grin. "We're replacing you."

Fenris's brow arched up to the skies and chuckled arrogantly as he crossed his arms. "With him?"

The blonde elf laughed joyfully. "He seems surprised. Tell me, do your tattoos travel down to where I think they may travel down? Are they marks to your… how can I say… sweet spots?"

Fenris's eyes became murderous and his voice grumpy in amazement, "…With him."

"Unlike you, he likes being in pain," Varric said fiendishly, joining in the little play.

"It is a thrill! The warm sharp clack of a whip, the knife dancing across your skin! It makes you feel alive, yes?" the blonde elf said charmingly and tried to get a hold of Fenris's shoulder.

"Be careful, he doesn't like to be touched," Varric said in amusement.

The elf grinned. "Oh? Perhaps it is because… you have not been touched correctly, yes? Perhaps some practice is necessary?"

Fenris frowned and shook his head, eyeing Hawke grumpily. "I'll be in Kirkwall if you need me."

"An invitation! Succes!" the Antivan elf almost shouted eagerly.

"Oh, cheer up, Fenris," Hawke said in amusement. "It could be worse. I could have been serious."

"That would be a first," Fenris said grumpily.

"You believing me for a second is also a first," Hawke stung back confidently.

"Will wonders never cease," Fenris said sarcastically. "Soon I'll wake up cheering for mages' rights and frolicking with woodland creatures on the green grass and under the blue, blue sky."

Hawke and Varric giggled and elbow-hit one another, probably because of some inside joke he completed himself.

"It wouldn't hurt to try," Hawke said in amusement. "I'd pay to see that."

"You can pay for such things just right across the street," Fenris said grumpily, pertaining to the whorehouses.

"Ah, why such rudeness to the lady?" the charming elf intervened. "One must never treat a fine leader as herself with such scorn."

"And who are you again?" Fenris asked coldly with an arrogant look.

"More importantly is the question, who might you be," the elf said to Hawke. "Your fine long hair of fire and eternal intelligence remind me so much of another redhead beauty that stole my heart away long ago."

"I could make that permanent if you wish," Fenris said flatly with a controlled scowl.

"Oh, Big Bad Fenris should be your name, my friend," the Antivan elf said in amusement.

Hawke frowned and ignored Fenris's strange remarks, because she felt like this was an opportunity to unmask him the so-called 'Adonis'. A former handsome and charming crow was something Anders had told her about on numerous occasions and her need for answers grew heavier. "Wait, what were you saying? I didn't quite catch the  _redhead_  part."

"Eager, are we not?" the Antivan said with a captivating smile. "Ah, but this is a story for another time, I think. Surely I could never deny a beauty such as yourself for long."

"You could try a little harder," Fenris said in a cold, assaultive tone.

The blonde elf grinned mischievously. "You know, my friend… All that pent up frustration could be put to… much better use."

"And I imagine you excel at such use," Fenris said grumpily. The elf noticed how Fenris made a faint step closer to Hawke as if to keep him away from her.

"Ah, such rudeness," the Antivan elf said playfully. "I must be the only gentleman here."

"Hey, I'm a gentleman," Varric said angrily. "Well, in public."

The elf looked down at him and smiled. "Forgive me my dwarven friend, I did not see you down there."

Hawke laughed softly and Varric gave her an angry look. "What? It's funny 'cause you're in public…" she said innocently, trying to save it, and scratched the back of her head awkwardly.

"Why should we trust this elf?" Fenris demanded firmly. "We could be waiting here to get ambushed any second."

"Hmmmmm, trust me," the elf said charmingly.

"He came with Armand. This is the  _friend_ ," Hawke said calmly. "And who's being paranoid now?"

"Ah, it is healthy to have a little paranoia. But everything with moderation," the blonde elf said joyfully. "Unless you want to get quickly  _assassinated_ by your own encaging delirium. Or your enemies, when you're not looking the right way."

"You are a former Crow then?" Fenris asked firmly.

"Oh, I am many things. Adventurer, skilled lover, former assassin, professional good-doer, occasional weekend warrior, oh so many things. And of course, admirer of strong women such as you," the Antivan elf said and smiled at Hawke.

"A bit too much flattery for my taste," Hawke said awkwardly, but Fenris ignored her remark.

"Those are a few too many titles for one little man," Fenris said subtly, taking advantage to mark his territory through the elf's own recognition of him being taller than the Antivan.

"I certainly do not wish to compare to you, my friend," the elf said calmly. "Or argue who was the bigger weapon."

"There is no point in arguing," Fenris said flatly. "My sword is bigger than yours." Hawke and Varric were dying inside trying not to laugh at this subtle cockfight and at Fenris probably not realising what he was saying.

"Ah, I knew a gorgeous man with a sword as big as yours once," the Antivan said charmingly and crossed his arms. "And he was heavily…  _compensating._ "


	31. Magic Is Meant To Serve Rogue

"…And he was heavily… _compensating._ "

Silence. Murderous, dreaded, royally horrifying silence.

The Antivan chuckled softly and leaned over to Hawke, "Should I tell him or should you?"

"What?" Fenris growled angrily.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Varric said calmly.

The utterly bestial scowl on Fenris said he was prepared to  _compensate_ in action at any moment for the searing silence that had suddenly shed over the whole courtyard. Although any such form of open assault was foolish and he was not about to get them all killed because of a smug elf with a knack for flirting with death. And yet he was boiling inside, without much awareness of the motive behind it. Perhaps it was instinct, the instinct risen in men when another throws the gauntlet, something only men understood. He also understood that this elf might as well have presented his genitals to Hawke out in the open, for this was the signal he was overly trying to send ever so subtly.

Then there was the obvious matter of how irony worked. You know how one shuts up, and only after he makes a fool out of himself, finally thinks of a good come-back? Well, he wished he had said "And your much talk and no action I should take as  _not_ a compensation for your lack of genuine balls?" But no. He was silent.

"Nonsense, my friend. I can smell a man playing dumb from miles away. He is no fool," the Antivan said confidently. "Tell me, my friend, do you wish to compete for points?"

"No need. I have no interest in competing in the little muscle league," Fenris said nonchalantly, still not realizing how it sounded, for he was pertaining simply to his small physique.

The blonde assassin grinned cockily, "It is not the size that matters, it is where you get to put it," he said sharply while raising an eyebrow faintly directed at Hawke. The sound of that sentence made Hawke draw an annoyed scowl, but not nearly as furious as the one on Fenris. It didn't matter anymore why he had been annoyed before, now it seemed the elf was plainly using the only female in the group as means to tease him. And he did not like the sound of that. It made Hawke sound like an object to everyone's disposal. If not for whatever other reason that made him want to shove his fist in this man's heart, at least this was reasonable.

Whatever witty line Hawke was going to say was quickly interrupted by Fenris's determined cold voice, "Before or after it gets cut off?"

"Whoa, whoa, nobody's cutting anyone's anything off," Hawke quickly intervened with a huge frown.

"Oh my dear Hawke to the rescue, a woman after my own heart," the Antivan elf said warmly.

"She is not yours," Fenris snarled in a deep voice, taking another faint step in front of Hawke.

"Oh? Is she yours then?" the elf asked confidently, grinning to no end because he knew this was not a question that was going to be answered.

"I'm not a fan of  _possessive_  pronouns," Hawke said assertively, giving Fenris an angry look as she finished. The look on his face was alight with annoyance as well as confusion, but he decided to remain aloof and unperturbed. This was utterly ridiculous.

The incandescent tension was fortunately saved by Armand's return from a window nearby. He leapt forward with a perfectly silent roll-over on the ground and approached them commandingly. "It is done."

"Smooth timing," Varric muttered grumpily.

"This  _would_ be the time to illuminate us all," Hawke said mockingly. "Well?"

The elf chuckled, "Yes, so it is." He looked at the dark and quiet palazzo near the courtyard there were in and said, "This is Occhio Del Corvo, or what is left of it. It used to be an Antivan bank, well, to the outside eye at least."

"And?" Hawke pressed.

"And through those corridors lies a passage that leads to one of the hidden prisons of the Crows."

"How in the Void is it then that we haven't gotten ambushed by now?" Varric asked in confusion.

Armand explained coldly, "It is abandoned. Now it is only a garden starting from behind. The old passages in this side of the city are infested with dangerous creatures and heavily booby-trapped. They would not look twice to guard such a place."

"Oh, so we're the ones to do a thorough spring cleaning," Hawke muttered grumpily.

"Indeed, we are the extermination team," the Antivan said in amusement. "As soon as we get through those passages, alive and well if it's not too much to hope for, the fireworks will begin."

"No more riddles please," Hawke pressed in annoyance and eyed the elf straight.

The blond elf nodded coldly. "There are mainly two things we are supposed to do – very swiftly and effectively. First is to free some dozen people rotting inside. There is a very old passage connected to the lot that will lead to an extension of the city sewers. We guide their escape through it, arise and a gondola awaits to lead them to the harbour. Second, get our hands on a few documents of royal importance, but I can take care of that."

"There's always a third," Hawke said perceptively with a grin.

"Oh, there's also a fourth and fifth, but I'm not such a grand idealist. Although, if I get to quickly kill one guild master in  _particular_ , I'd say with utmost happiness that this was a fine enough Tuesday."

"I don't understand. Are you trying to cause a scene to provoke them all?" Hawke asked in suspicion.

"But of course. And why not?" the Antivan elf said in delight. "As long as I take the offensive instead of simply killing all the assassins they send after me, I am the wiser, no?"

Such stupidity and utterly idiotic idealism. For all his faint dreams of going straight to Minrathous and somehow slaying his master, even Fenris knew this was no 'battles shared are battles won' situation.

"How is  _that_ wise?" Fenris asked angrily. "This is not just one guild master. It is a whole guild you are going after. You would need quite an army to overthrow such a dangerous system."

"Why should I not seize upon an opportunity to dethrone them one by one, because they do, in fact, work separately? No army is necessary for a guild full of people who sleep with a knife under the pillow even against their own wives. I am simply using their own weapon against them."

"While placing everyone else in danger," Fenris retorted coldly.

"I am not forcing anyone to come with me. My friend Armand chose to be on my side, as did your lady. If you are not comfortable with the nature of our business, you are free not to get involved, by all means." The elf paused and looked at Hawke for an answer, "I shall ask nothing more of you than you are willing to give."

Fenris didn't say anything for three seconds, only to finally respond with, "She is not my lady."

Hawke sighed and rolled her eyes, "Seriously? That's all you got from his speech?"

"Semantics are utterly important, Hawke," Varric said in amusement.

The elf chuckled in delight, "Hah, you are quite right. One can misunderstand so much in these situations," he said with the most joyful grin. Subtleties aside, he was right. There were too many mixed signals coming and going from this charming triangle and the assassin was enjoying most of it.

But enough, it was time to choose sides. Hawke looked at Varric and Fenris instinctively and said with a shrug, "I want to do this. It's up to you if you wish to join me." She smiled shortly in reassurance of her respect for at least  _some_  boundaries. "No hard feelings."

"Like I said, Bianca and I are good to go," Varric said assertively and nodded at Hawke.

Hawke smirked warmly at him, however shortly, for her face swiftly died in coldness as she turned to Fenris for his answer. Her eyes shed no glimpse of command or plea in them. He returned her look with hesitant eyes and masked concern, looking at the ground as if to examine the newly noticed tiles on the floor. Then his eyes rose and grew dark and determined, followed by a chivalrous nod directed at her. "I remain at your side."

"Phew, I thought I had to beg," Hawke said sarcastically with a warm smile.

"I must confess, I have met few people such as you who would offer their help without sought for their own personal gain," the blonde elf said knightly. "Unless there is a catch. Most times it is so, 'tis true."

Hawke's face fiercely drew a small, contained scowl enough to unsettle everyone, to which the Antivan quickly corrected himself, "Of course I do not mean to insult you. You have my gratitude."

"As you do mine," Armand said sharply, but a hint of truthful warmth came alight in his tired eyes. This short insightful look of this bone-hard austere man quickly directed at Fenris and turned into a gazing approval look.  _You've got a good one, don't let her go,_ his eyes said to him, to which Fenris only faintly nodded with his eyelids, trying to contain whatever smile was coming forth. "Come, we must hurry."

* * *

**Inside the Abandoned Building**

Apparently, to be  _perfectly_ sure, they had to climb up on the roof and slide down through a crack. It wasn't long before they entered the main abandoned hall, which absolutely reeked and whispered death. In such heavy silence, they went through a narrow door; and then, in a hollow stone passage in which they could hear their own breath in the wind, they crept along the wall until their shadow leapt out in a new faintly shimmering light. Armand and his friend stopped and looked at one another, their whispers like the rustling of dry leaves.

"What is it?" Hawke asked quietly as she drew near them, afraid suddenly this exhilaration in her would die.

They saw again that nightmare landscape which only ever so politely told them to back the hell away if they valued their own lives. Hawke felt the chill of loneliness, the chill of guilt.

"He's there," Armand said sharply. "Your soon to be wounded one."

"I've always loved the smell of near death," the Antivan said confidently and drew out his daggers.

In the breath of a second, the two disappeared and as Hawke looked behind, Varric did as well. For all  _intended_ purposes, rogues would always be rogues. And effective ones. Hawke and Fenris drew out the swords from their sheaths, ignoring the feeling inside that they were idiots, and caught up quickly from behind. The room was filled with poisoned gas and whatever bodies once breathed inside were no longer living now.

" _Braska_ ," the Antivan elf said childishly. "You are getting old, Amadeo, because your eyesight cruelly sucks  _balls._ "

"I am not good with faces, but he had a rather distinctive  _butt_ ," Armand said while appearing very serious, to which everybody froze in complete confusion.

The elf surprisingly chuckled, "Oh you always did crack me up, Amadeo. Alas, we are still rid of one asshole, regardless."

"That was a  _jest_? Shit, what happened to good old knock knock jokes?" Hawke asked awkwardly while following them through yet another passage.

"One requires a particular fine taste to understand Amadeo's humour," the elf said joyfully. "It's the kind you never see coming."

"So kind of like surprise butt-sex," Hawke said in amusement, to which Armand gave her a short but murderous enough look for her to back off.

"Careful, my dear, you never know when it will be your turn," the Antivan grinned confidently.

"You know me, I disavow any other way of being sodomized," Hawke said sarcastically.

"Well, that _could_  be arranged, no?" the Antivan said playfully.

_Careful 'dear', before_ _ **you**_ _get sodomized by a sword,_ Fenris thought angrily while walking behind the elf. He was getting on his nerves more quickly than the abomination ever managed to.

"So that's your way with the ladies? You take some ice, step on it and then say 'Well now that I broke the ice, let's do the snake and cave dance'?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"That  _did_  work on several occasions," the elf chuckled joyfully. "Now why do you look at me that way? What can a man do, when it seems more  _indirect_ ways like flattery do not work at all in his favour?" the Antivan said while chuckling confidently.

"He could give up," Hawke said grumpily and rolled her eyes.

"Now you're just making it more challenging. I see what you are doing there, my dear," the Antivan said with a grin.

_Back off_ , was what she would have wanted to say, but she knew a fine stratagem when she saw one. The elf was masterfully deflecting from drawing attention to his identity by pointless flirtations he knew would not truthfully lead anywhere. She had to keep playing his game until she found a weak link. "Truly? I thought my cover was well hidden," she simply said nonchalantly. Little did she pay attention from behind, to the impeding  _surprise_ of a certain other elf ticking like a time bomb and soon about to burst.

They returned to silence and moved quickly along the spiral stairs through the next dark passage. 'Adonis' pressed to go up, rather than down, and the cracks, in this obviously new building they arrived in through all those hidden corridors, let the faint moonlight creep in over their heads. The sky was a pale violet now that the clouds were gone, the stars small and faint, the air around them sultry and fragrant even as they distanced themselves from the small opening.

Next came a precipice made so because most of the existing stairs had collapsed and landed somewhere far down. The sea of pitch-black they saw as they leaned to gaze down all but showed their contour. It was time for a bit of quick thinking. And jumping. They managed, of course, these were two assassins used to harsh situations and stunning acrobatics, Fenris himself who hadn't exactly lived in a picnic during his long escape…and then there was Hawke who was always eager to flirt with death and give him a stroke as she walked sideways on a narrow edge with her back brushing against the walls and pretending she was about to fall. Or jumping suddenly, wall running because she lost patience to follow in her fellow elves' footsteps, hanging on to narrow edges and letting go to disappear down in the dark. Maker she was crazy.

And then there was Varric, who was pissing his pants despite his eagerness to participate in the Cirque du so Gay jumping experiment. Having legs much shorter and less flexible than the rest of them, they had to wait for him, hold on to him or catch him when he jumped last. He had never felt so alive, he said. Well, at least Varric knew how to look on the bright side, whereas Fenris was currently battling an aneurism as Hawke kept disappearing from sight, using her swords as climbing tools, as if jumping childishly into the darkness wasn't enough.

There were some very small cracks in the high walls they were climbing down, although not enough to always spot her landings. The shadows still pressed in from all sides, and just when Hawke leapt forward to grab onto a ledge, her hand stumbled and she slipped down while cursing  _Bloody shiet._

"Hawke!" Fenris screamed loudly as he rapidly jumped away from the wall to descend upon the darkness that swallowed her down the opposing wall.

"Hawke, are you okay?" Varric also shouted with no more care for being sneaky and shrouded in shadows.

"I'm alright- ight- ight...!" her voice echoed from somewhere, followed by a harrowing silence which disturbed Fenris and quickened his moves almost preternaturally. "… It smells in here...ere...ere."

Fenris descended through the interlocking metal circles hanging from the wall and quickly let go when he heard her last sentence resound much closer. He landed on a large stone floor with no Hawke in sight in whichever directions his eyes roamed agitatedly. He would have screamed again after her with no care for whatever enemy force he would give out their position to, but his ear suddenly twitched as he slowly looked above to see a blue-coated body shouting  _Maker's balls_  and falling, as a few pieces of wood broke in half above his head.

He stopped her fall right in time as he caught her in his arms. Her eyes were widened and her face was pale behind the waterfall of hair covering it. She smiled crookedly in silence to balance out the bestial scowl that painted Fenris and his fiercely pumping vein on his forehead. "Oops?" she said innocently. Fenris's eyes grew much darker and calmer and just when she thought everything was fine, he dropped her undauntedly like a dead weasel and she landed with a bang on the floor.

"Was that really necessary?" she asked in annoyance as she tried to get up, rubbing her back in pain while Fenris walked away nonchalantly.

"I don't know, was it?" Fenris said with complete lack of emotion, brushing dust off of his shoulder as if she wasn't even there anymore.

"My guess is on yes?" Hawke asked innocently and chuckled, as she came beside him and looked up to see the rogues landing swiftly and quietly on the floor, unlike them.

"Next time I won't even bother to catch you," Fenris said coldly.

"Tough love," Hawke said mockingly with a raised eyebrow. "Well, what can you do."

"You can cease with the reckless clown act," Fenris uttered viciously while eyeing her with disapproval.

Hawke's eyebrow arched to the skies and the corner of her lips curled into a contemptuous, unimpressed sneer as she looked at Fenris and then calmly said, "I  _could_ be more considerate, 'tis true, but then I'd pass up as overly vigilant and annoyingly prudent and that spot in the group has already been filled by you, oh mightly Calenhad." Then she turned her back on him nonchalantly and looked at her hands. "On a totally unrelated note, your zipper is open."

* * *

**A few passages and dead assassins later…**

"So…" Hawke started as she approached 'Adonis' in yet another dark and lonely hallway.

"Yeeeees?" he responded playfully, tilting his head towards her.

"How long have you been wondering this city?" she asked calmly.

The elf raised an eyebrow and said confidently, "What kind of question is that? My whole life of course."

"I mean now and after you left the order." She grinned fiendishly. "It's near implausible that you remained in the city."

The elf sneered only shortly and resumed with joyfully deflective smile, "Oh, that. Not too long, no."

Hawke narrowed her eyes and remained unyielding. "So where have you been this whole time?"

"Oh, so many questions. What are you, my wife? I haven't even bedded you yet," the Antivan snarled in annoyance.

"Well…" Hawke said awkwardly, to which Fenris's elven ear twitched almost as if it had been electrically shocked. "That depends. Is it even possible to be a candidate for such a position?"

"Performing a survey, Hawke?" Fenris asked grumpily from behind.

The elf laughed softly, "It seems you already have a candidate on your own end and I would hate to stand between that."

Hawke smirked confidently, "I'm a strong believer in marriage and its  _lies._ So how about we get past this charade and straight to the point. What do you say?"

"And what would that point be?" the Antivan and Fenris asked at the same time.

"Take your time. They're obviously expecting different answers," Varric said from behind.

Hawke looked strangely at Fenris and appeared to quickly decide to ignore him. She looked back at the elf and only got to say, "My point is –" before a whole wall next to them collapsed to the ground, at which point she felt two gauntlets grabbing her in a swift motion and shoving her from left to right only to bump her head in a wall and fall heavily on her side.

It turned out both elves got a hold of her and shoved her into different directions, to which Varric shouted, "ALRIGHT. WILL YOU PLEASE DECIDE WHO GETS THE GIRL ALREADY? It's kinda bad for her health and there's no Anders here to save the day."

The blonde elf quickly turned his curious look to Varric as if he recognized the name. It was a short expression, but enough to be caught by the redheaded human lie detector. Meanwhile, Hawke got up coughing and brushed the dust off her shoulder. "When two cocks fight, the third swoops in suavely and wins." Then she winked at Varric, "So, what are you doing later?"

"Oh, I've got a few dozen cigars to smoke, brandy to drink and a beautiful crossbow with your name on it," Varric said confidently.

"Oh I love it how you stay so true," Hawke said in amusement. "Now, what caused the explosion? Pretty empty follow-up for an ambush."

"They are on to us, obviously," the cocky elf said without much concern. "I never quite liked being bottom. Let us change positions, shall we?"

In yet another narrow hallway, these Crow guards were  _annoying._ They were too agile, too quick to escape their sight, too swift to catch them off guard. Much better opponents than the rogue wannabe mercenaries in Hawke's usual enemy repertoire. For her, fights were fairly easy because she was the least expected to tank the groups, which made her swift whirlwinds and scythes all the more effective. As for Fenris, well, it didn't seem to be much of a problem for him. His lyrium glow allowed him to refract through most backstabs and surprise the enemies with his surprise fist through the heart and die dead enough move. But now their group was much too fiercely imbalanced for her taste and it grew clearer that Armand and his friend were using her as the tanking shield for their surprise lethal attacks with either their Antivan stilettos or their interestingly enough ghost blades coming from their sleeves.

Nevertheless, it was still  _awesome._  Oh yes, the air never ravished them heavier with such vigour and freshness coming out of a good, successful kill of someone who pleaded for destiny to come back and bite them. Dead was dead and it that was all that mattered. She ducked, dual-swept their legs and kicked them backwards only to plant the two swords in their chests. Fenris was always behind her, ready to powerfully intercept all backstabs coming at her. At one point it grew extremely misty, as both the assassins on their side and on the enemy's threw gas bombs during fights. As she kicked an elf in the nuts and prepared to finish him off, something dragged at her coat from behind and grabbed her by the shoulder painfully. Fenris made her duck down and she rolled over and away as a crazed elf marched into him. At this point he was growing in lack of a calm demeanour during combat. He grabbed the light-armoured elf by the bicep and rolled him in the air before he fell on the ground and Fenris planted a sword in his chest. Good sign. Usually he beheaded people without mercy.

His short delight of triumph as he saw this was the last of them got suddenly interrupted as he felt and heard a fierce splash of blood smear his hair and his back. The blood bath erupted from Hawke's sword which was plunged right through and out of an assassin's head which almost got to stab him in the ribs. As the corpse was pulled down by gravity, Hawke looked at him calmly and winked.

"It seems Amadeo did not exaggerate your skills," the Antivan said proudly. "You have piqued my interest."

"Well, you have piqued my indifference," Hawke said coldly.

The elf chuckled and shook his head while looking down, muttering in Antivan with a smile, "O, cara mia, mishante vello troppo." (Note: It's my take on creating Antivan – this is  _not_  Italian – He said to himself  _Oh my dear, I miss you so much -_ which was quickly misheard for the term 'vishante' / 'eat' in Tevene.)

"That's it," Fenris snapped fiercely and shoved the elf into a wall.

"Normally I know exactly what I said that piss people off, but this time I must confess I have not one clue," the elf said in amusement as he remained unperturbed by Fenris's assaultive grip.

Fenris jumped down his throat and snarled, "Is it not enough that you speak like a baboon in heat; now you have to spit your perversions in your own tongue so nobody understands?"

"That is a nice trick you have, my friend, but I assure you I can still kill you in six different ways right now; it may be best for both of us if that doesn't happen, yes?" the blonde elf said joyfully to Fenris, without trying to escape his assault just yet. "As for whatever you think you have heard, I am quite certain you have  _misheard._ "

"He is Tevinter," Armand said calmly. "There is plenty to be misheard."

"Oh, Heaven," the blonde elf gasped and rolled his eyes. "You base your own pompous language for translating  _my_ beautifully glorious tongue? Such insolence."

"My apologies. I shall endeavour to consult a dictionary for your rank gutter tongue," Fenris said roughly while narrowing his eyes and keeping his grip on the elf's throat.

The elf laughed heavily, "My friend, you sting my heart with such hostility. Truly you do."

Fenris eyed him coldly and his glow seemed to become brighter. "That's not the only thing I can do to your hea-" A sudden blow hit him at the back of head and as he turned around his angry eyes beheld an even angrier scowling Hawke.

"Do you two need a room, or a bed?" she finally asked apathetically in utter annoyance.

"I could make do with just an alleyway if necessary," the blonde elf said in innocent delight. "This is all just fun and games, my friend, you needn't let your temper rise."

Fenris remained undaunted, although his eyes grew darker and his nostrils were viciously flaring. Nevertheless, he looked back at the elf and dropped him nonchalantly. "It was your choice to play with fire."

The elf sighed and smiled delightfully as he groomed his clothes. "'Tis the spice of life, and I never did mind a few burns."

" _Mordev beium testes,_ " Fenris muttered unemotionally.

"Oh, was that a flirt? Translating your pompous Tevinter is so hard," the elf said in amusement.

"Not unless you consider death threats or calling your mother a whore a pick-up line," Varric said while chuckling.

"My Mother  _was_ a whore, and as for the death threats… I can work with those," the elf said self-assuredly.

" _I said,_ bite my balls," Fenris surprisingly said without shame. Bad sign; this clearly meant he lost track of all his patience and control.

"Hmmm I can work with that too," the elf said with a playful grin. "Denying me is a crime against the Maker himself."

He just had to press it further, didn't he? Fenris snapped and came back to him. "That's quite alright. I come from godless people."

Armand quickly came between them and said in a sharp tone, "Ill' marital et fidus coniugi suam, hoc non nisi per iocum avaris," then he paused and sighed while shaking his head. "Na festis ex nostrem pericum nove."

Fenris narrowed his eyes and muttered back in his language as though he were unimpressed, "Festis opifex non curaevat." Then he gestured and pointed in an ambiguous direction. "Terra sic iocud parvum gustum havet," he appeared to say in annoyance and shoved his palm as if to stop, "quobis ei dellare mortus brevi tempore canavuram."

While they kept arguing in controlled tones in their strange language, Hawke and Varric exchanged shrugs and perplexed looks while the Antivan shook his head with an entertained smirk. One just had to look at their body language. Armand was not really expressing himself in a commanding or fatherly tone, but he looked as though he was clearing something out. Fenris appeared unimpressed and revolting politely against whatever the other said and his hand gestures expressed annoyance or impatience. Hawke tried to make something out of it, but could only understand two or three words she heard him say before. Apart from the overly repeating  _kevesh, vishatta_ and  _aluvin valla kal_ which Hawke learned over the years were all curse words, at best, all she got was "cold", "horse" and "death", which didn't really… have anything to do with this. Except for death, but one could be so pessimistic… At last, Armand seemed to smile for a second and said something calmly, at which Fenris responded with a curious silence while looking down, followed by a nod in agreement.

"Well, if everyone's speaking in different tongues, I might as well start rambling in old Alamari too," Hawke said in annoyance, her eyebrow arching sneeringly to the skies above.

"Oh, that is a seriously disgusting language," the blonde elf suddenly said.

Hawke grinned shortly and pointed at the elf, "AHA! And how would you know that, hm? Perhaps you can say  _ashes to ashes_ while you're at it?" she said assertively, pertaining subtly to the Sacred Ashes.

"I have travelled far and wide, my dear," the elf diverted calmly and sought to resume walking.

He stopped when Hawke said confidently from behind, "No one speaks old Alamari except for the regional people in the surrounding areas of Haven. What in blazes could you possibly have had to do there in your  _travels_ far and wide under the blue, blue sky?"

The elf smiled and rolled his eyes, "Someone needed  _assassinating_ as I recall. It was a long time ago."

Hawke scowled fiercely and pointed at him, "You are as terrible a liar as you probably were an assas-… Yes, indeed… You  _are_ that  _terrible_ assassin, aren't you?"

"I disagree," the blonde elf said and turned around with a grin. "I am ridiculously awesome."

"Zevran," she said assertively, almost sounding like an accusation as she approached him and he backed off against a wall.

The elf grinned under her assaultive posture. "Yes, baby. Say my name again."

She ignored his pointless imperatives and narrowed her eyes. "I have a bone to pick with you when we're out of here."

"Is it the same one I'm thinking of?" Zevran asked innocently. She didn't answer, instead murderously growing a scowl. "Oh come now, that one is Ferelden," Zevran continued subtly, without caring much for blowing his cover anymore.

"Keep your boner for your wife," Hawke said sharply.

Fenris chuckled suddenly. "I can't imagine how she puts up with a husband like you."

"She enjoys it. I make  _sure_ she does," Zevran said confidently. " _You_ on the other hand…"

"I what?" Fenris asked while crossed his arms.

"I hope you last as long in bed as you do in arguments. Hum," Zevran paused and grinned at her. "I should be asking this of Hawke."

She rolled her eyes and backed away. "Hawke this, Hawke that. Why does everything fall to me?"

Zevran laughed in delight. "And why not? Your skills in leadership, your badass beauty; men should bow their heads as you walk, my dear. I dare say you could rule an entire country."

Hawke snorted quickly and Fenris chuckled heavily. "She's too proud for that."

"Such a shame," Zevran said charmingly. "That is exactly what separates true leaders from tyrants. Alas."

"Enough of this hero worship, I'm getting seriously nauseated," Varric intervened angrily.

"Hm, yes, I can see now just how fiercely ridiculous this whole thing is," Hawke said grumpily as she started walking forward.

"What is?" Zevran asked from behind in confusion.

"She has a strong case of hero worship for your wife," Fenris said calmly while surprisingly smirking with ease as he talked to Zevran now.

"I do not!" Hawke screamed and her face turned red from blushing.

"I will tell her she has a fan," Zevran said in amusement from behind.

She stopped and turned to him. "I can tell her so myself, if you don't mind."

"Tsk. It is not as if I'm hiding her in my pants, much as I would like. A bit paranoid, are we not?" Zevran said charmingly.

"You have  _no_ idea," Fenris said grumpily.

"Maker's dangling testicles, even HIM you turn and gang up on me with?" Hawke almost shouted, cheeks burning red. She pointed at Fenris, "Fuck you," then pointed at Zevran, "Fuck you," then stopped at Armand and Varric. "You two are good."

"Heeh- now what was that for?" Zevran asked with a scowl.

"You know how once a month women turn crazy for about thirty days?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

"You know how something about your face attracts my fist?" Hawke retaliated angrily.

Fenris rolled his eyes and turned his head to Zevran, "Told you."

"Yeah, keep rolling your eyes Fenris, maybe one day you'll find a brain back there."

Zevran chuckled, "Heavens, such rudeness, you're not even married yet."

"No worries there. If I was his wife, I'd poison his drink," Hawke said confidently.

"If I was your husband I'd drink it," Fenris retorted sharply.

Zevran chuckled again and looked at Armand. "No, trust me. They are a terrible example."

"You don't say," Armand muttered grumpily with a contained smile.

"At fighting as rogues, yes, you are most certainly correct," Hawke waved at them irritably.

"Well, that's why we have monstrous warriors such as you to keep us safe and warm while we dance with knives and swim in glory," Zevran teased cockily.

"And at some point drown in their own arrogance," Hawke finished grumpily. "Wait,  _what_ in the Void is that?"

They arrived in a grand windowless hallway, being so deep beneath the surface already, which contained at the other end a massive pair of doors resembling a vault made out of fine brass and steel and ridiculously complex locking mechanisms.

"Tell me it's time we turn around," Varric muttered in annoyance.

"Sadly, no," Zevran said and sighed, "There is no other way and I think this is actually the right destination." He turned and gave Armand a warm smile. "What do you think?"

Armand's eyelids fell halfway and groaned,"I think I'm too old for this sh-"

"Those rings - they're interlocking in some strange mechanism," Hawke said in fascination as she approached the doors. "Well, now it's time you  _swim in glory,_ rogue."

"Ah, I have always been terrible at lockpicking," Zevran complained innocently. "What do you say, Amadeo? We blow it up?"

"Of course," Armand said calmly while reaching into his coat.

"No great idea or story starts with  _What do you say we blow it up,_ " Varrilc quickly intervened. "Can't I just have a look? It looks fiercely dwarven anyway."

"You do what you have to do, my dwarven friend," Zevran said assuredly. "In the meantime we make our bomb, yes?"

"Good god," Fenris muttered in annoyance.

"Hasty judgements are  _criminal,_ forgive the pun," Hawke said quickly. "Let's just calm down and work this thing out. So there are three rings in the centre and two grand metal bars forming an inverted V contraption above. They're held by these two side ledges. We either crack these up or resolve to… "

"Look out!" Zevran shouted from behind. They backed away in terror as Armand threw a rather huge bomb already aflame right into the centre of the vault door.

The searing noise of the explosion deafened everyone and their eyes grew blind and alight as they covered themselves and ran away from the epicentre. The ground shook colossally hard and the walls nearby started to collapse, dropping giant pieces of stone all around the group. "NOT TODAY," Varric shouted in annoyance as he gripped tightly at one of Hawke's legs.

"You've  _got_ to be kidding me," Zevran scowled innocently when the ground finally calmed away. The massive door was perfectly intact.

"So much for swimming in glory, eh?" Hawke said mockingly and approached the door again. "Let the smart people take over from now, yes?"

"Whatever," Zevran muttered irritably.

Hawke examined the complicated mechanism as Fenris came beside her and eyed it curiously. "Do you have a theory?"

"This contraption here is held on both sides by glass plates," Hawke said as she pointed and tried not touch them. "If I wasn't sober, I'd say we're in a Circle."

"There is no Circle here," Zevran shouted angrily. "Care to postulate another perhaps more reasonable theory?"

"If it were a Circle I'd be-…" she paused and stopped herself from continuing when Fenris flinched. She inhaled heavily and caught Fenris by the elbow to drag him closer.

"Yes?" he said politely to mask his confusion as he looked at her insistently.

"This is –"

"Why are you whispering?"

" _Because_ this door is sealed by," Hawke paused and looked at the group of rogues who were peacefully ignoring them as Varric showed them his crossbow, "the door is sealed by magic."

"And … it can hear us?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

"And I don't need this to become a big fuss," Hawke hissed quickly. "If this door is a spitting replica of a vault of the Circle, then it needs to be opened by a mage and a Templar."

"Perfect. We should go for a quick run to Rialto and kidnap a Templar then," Fenris muttered grumpily.

"There may be something else we can do before we resort to kidnapping," Hawke said while rolling her eyes. "Your markings… they rip through the particles of the Fade, don't they? That's why you can't actually move through walls or lifeless things in general, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Fenris said calmly. "I know nothing of what they were actually designed for."

"Well I've got a pretty good idea," Hawke sneered. "If you touch that plate while your glow is on it might mistake you for a Templar."

" _How_  in the name of-"

"Just do it," Hawke growled quietly.

Fenris pressed his lips in annoyance and turned his lyrium glow on. "Fine."

"On the count of three," Hawke demanded assertively as she moved to the other plate and prepared to touch it. "One…" They looked at each other in amicable telepathy and a sudden form of trust built up to connect them in their exchange of seemingly angry looks. Lyrium-etched elf and warrior human mage alike, they stood in front of each side of the mechanism and drew their hands out in front of the silver glowing plates as if two sides of a blind coin suddenly met to fuse for the greater good of the people who restlessly tossed it from one resentful hand to another. "Two…" Fenris inhaled heavily and prepared to dissipate his hand from the physical world when Hawke effortlessly nodded at him a silent  _Three._

 


	32. The Witchburners In The Underworld

The closer you think you are, the less you actually see. This roamed through his mind as Fenris dissipated his hand and channelled the familiar searing wave of energy through the glass plate. He did not think of it that way, but by ripping through the particles of the Fade only to solidify his hand back into the physical world, he was doing the one thing mages couldn't do without piles of lyrium, complicated rituals and years of discipline. More so, mages could not really be in two places at the same time without actually  _being_ there and  _wholly_ , whereas he was like a thief who didn't need to roam whole in another realm to draw out the strength he needed. In fact, he didn't think he was drawing out anything. His ability was for all intended purposes, purely geographical. The magically sealed glass plate would sense his lyrium and the fact that he didn't have magical powers, but at the same time, it was as if his hand wasn't really there at all. He was, but he wasn't. That part struck him to wonder if Hawke felt that way about being a mage, only perhaps the opposite worked in this situation: she wasn't, but she ultimately was.

This thought in his mind lingered, as the blue waves of energy reflected from the glass plate at the same time with the waves glowing an incandescent red from the glass plate that Hawke was touching. It felt like a soft, but massive force field of magic had unravelled as a sudden wind started swiftly blowing through their hair and clothes and a thick clacking sound gave off the metal rings that were unlocking and distancing themselves from one another. They looked at each other in silence as the mechanisms one by one appeared as though a perfect force of mayhem dictated their upheaval. The vault shuddered and creaked, letting out monstrous metallic groans as the mechanisms slid in different directions. The inversed V contraption above them let out its own disturbing symphony which made them back away in instinct. A large clank followed the giant metal bars forming a perfect horizontal line that quickly severed itself in half and the bars resided on the edges. A necessary disruption in the face of the apparently  _greater good_ , and the vault opened as quickly as it had been deceived.

" _Hooolly_ shit," Varric's voice echoed from behind them. "How did you…?"

"Oh, your little glowing trick seems to be really useful, my friend," Zevran uttered in joy as he approached Fenris. "One could only guess what sort of wonders it can do in more… ah… horizontal situations."

"Guessing is always free," Fenris said nonchalantly, containing his relief that his ability distracted them from thinking Hawke had anything  _magical_ to do with opening the door.

"Can I pay to see, then?" Zevran asked jokingly.

"No," Fenris said sharply.

"Ah, fine, I had to try, do not get mad … again. Alas," Zevran said while grinning. Then his head turned forwards to see what the vault contained and his shimmering amber eyes widened. "Holy crap."

"Is this the… prison you were looking for?" Varric asked awkwardly as they came into the grand room.

It was an enormous dark room which contained about eight giant black pillars on the edges and one even bigger one in the center. Each pillar was enveloped by some curiously looking metal pattern spiralling along their height. It depicted little X-s in the form of sharp daggers and each one bore the symbol of the Crows.

"Stop," Hawke shouted the group. "Don't take another step. Pressure plates," she said and pointed at the squares on the floor where all the pillars were.

"Santo cazzo Madre di Andraste." Zevran's shoulders sank and his joyful cocksure face disrupted its pretty child-like features in a deeply frustrated scowl once he noticed the nightmare landscape. "More puzzles?! Che cazzo!" He threw his arms in the air in desperation and paced backwards and forwards. "I feel like I'm in the Gauntlet again, bruti figli di puttana bastardi, fatti una pugnetta, mangia merde e morte!" (*Holy fucking mother of Andraste, *What the fuck! *Ugly bastard sons of bitches, have a wank, eat shit and die.)

Varric chuckled softly and elbowed Fenris. "I think I like Tevinter curses better. Anything in Antivan sounds like a love declaration."

"Yes, I declare with utmost sincerity my love for this incredibly frustrating  _piece of shit_ ," Zevran shouted angrily.

"Easy there, Zevran. I thought you were a professional at this," Hawke said in amusement.

"I'm a professional at  _killing_ and  _bedding_ , not at solving puzzles," Zevran muttered grumpily.

"And what did you do before when this sort of thing happened?" Varric asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Tsk. I ask my wife, what do you think?" Zevran uttered roughly.

"So, not much difference between our little groups," Varric said in amusement and elbowed Hawke. "What do you say, boss?"

Hawke raised an eyebrow and appeared to be silently swearing in her language as well for calling her boss, but then she sighed and started walking nonchalantly around the pillars. "Maybe this isn't the right way to look at it."

"Oh, good, let's look at it with our heads on the floor and our legs up in the air," Zevran said grumpily and crossed his arms.

"Why are you so pissy all of a sudden?" Hawke asked assertively. "Seems to me you've been through this sort of business all your life, yet now you're acting like it's all virgin territory."

Zevran rolled his eyes and appeared that this time, he was not going to crack up any joke about the different connotations Hawke's words could have. "It  _is_ virgin territory, I have never been here before and it is inconceivable that the Crows would have such a room. Imagine you've known a city or your own house your whole life only to find out it is harbouring a whole new world in its secret nests!"

"I get it," Hawke said warmly. "Still, that's why you bring along someone like me. So take a chill pill and let me work this thing."

Zevran finally relaxed and chuckled. "That's exactly what the Warden would say."

"The Warden? So formal. Or did you forget her name?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"It is a habit to address her in formal terms when confronted with strangers," Zevran said calmly. "You know how it is."

"I do?" Hawke asked bewilderedly. "No, I don't think I do."

Zevran sighed. "You save the world, everybody loves you. Then you go back to being the primary babysitter in a world without chaos, people relax, they get tangled in first world problems and who will they have to blame? The Maker? No, no."

"Still not seeing how I can relate," Hawke said with a confused frown.

"You are a certified good-doer and a leader, no? Who do people go to bark at when things don't go their way and when they're  _not_ jumping and screaming 'Hawke to the rescue!'?"

"Oh, that." She coughed defensively. "I hardly notice anymore."

Fenris listened carefully as he pretended to examine the walls from a distance. As he did that, he heard Zevran chuckle softly. "Well, good. One could go mad in these situations. Me? I take delight in remaining in the shadows. It gives me more strength and time to do my part in taking care of  _her._ "

"Yeah, I get your drift, I think," Hawke said and rolled her eyes.

"No, not like that," Zevran said calmly. "Although that is also true. But my statement pertains to what I can do to protect and help her while she protects and helps everyone else. It is not a job for the faint-hearted, I will tell you th-"

"I don't need to be taken care of," Hawke quickly asserted firmly.

Zevran chuckled again softly, "You say that now, but when the time comes to count your blessings, do not forget those who silently watched over your back when you were not looking."

"Enough," Hawke pressed sharply.

"So… puzzle?" Varric intervened lightly.

"Right, puzzle," Hawke said while clearing her throat, for Zevran was starting to dwell on very dangerous territory. She turned back and looked at the walls. "These metal wheels on the wall look positively useless."

"The obvious pillar puzzle in the center is perhaps too obvious?" Fenris said calmly as he strolled along the opposing side of the room.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Hawke shouted back at Fenris as she looked at the silver wheels with very sharp, dagger-looking spokes arching out of the felloes. Perhaps a bit of a beautifully grotesque scenery with a lethal complicated puzzle in the hidden passages of some secret assassin prison was a bit too much.

Fenris grinned shortly. "If one could give credit to my 'countrymen' for something, it's making endless and complicated traps. This one seems child's play in comparison."

"I will let that one slide, Fenris, because it is the creation of only a part of my countrymen that I viciously hate," Zevran said grumpily with crossed arms. "But mind what you say about my dear Antiva."

"If one loves his country, that does not mean one must also love its people," Fenris said calmly. Armand approached him from behind and he turned back to face him. "Yes?"

"You have a theory, little bitch?" Armand asked sharply.

"I thought we were past the name calling," Fenris replied with a scowl.

"Hm. Can you account for being the opposite?" Armand asked calmly.

Fenris remained frowning with his arms crossed, but he decided quickly that they had enough time to argue over what was called for and what was not. He rolled his eyes and turned his back to Armand, examining the wheels of different sizes hanging on the wall. A large clanking sound echoed through the room and they instinctively turned back to see that Hawke had pressed something that made the wheels on both walls roll and slide to make a different shape, followed by a dozen stilettos shooting down from the ceiling and almost killing Varric and Zevran if they hadn't ducked down and rolled away from the sudden sharp rain of mayhem.

"I bet you wish you hadn't done that," Fenris shouted from the other side with a grin.

"Oh, up yours, Mister This Puzzle is Child's Play," Hawke shouted back angrily. "At least we now know you get a knife in your skull if you don't press the right lever."

"Yeah, let's not do that again though, hm?" Varric said grumpily while fixing up his clothes.

Hawke sighed and looked in different directions. Everything seemed a whole lotta distractions for nothing and she wondered if in reality one could simply step on some plate by accident that would make whatever hidden door there was open up and they would soon be on their way. The grand room crept her out enough as it was, seeming more that they were in a gothic Tevinter ... underground cathedral, than an old Antivan catacomb, statues of one-eyed ravens and gargoyles staring bestially at them from above on the high dark walls.

The closer you think you are, the less you actually see. Distraction on top of distraction, they would not get anywhere. As her brain kept boiling to find a solution, she spotted a few roses or some other resembling red flower tangled above in the central pillar. The plates around the flowers were roughly painted red too, as if these Crows really valued the art of showing off with macabre metal impersonations of blood being spilled on a silver plate to say "We stain the honour of the many with no mercy whatsoever."

Then it hit her that this, all of these little mechanisms and artsy objects in the room could have been magical just as the vault doors were. One just needed to find the weak link or the hidden lever.

"Hawke," Fenris shouted from the other side and pointed at the back of the central pillar. "Come see this."

She rushed by his side and look up to see a small wheel hidden at the back of the central pillar, deeply camouflaged in the plate patterns it was encaged in. "Shit, how did my eye miss that?"

"For one, your bangs are in the way," Fenris said grumpily. "For two…" he pretended to think arrogantly while caressing his chin, "Hm, what was two?"

"The number of testicles you will lose soon," Hawke said angrily.

"Oh, I'm positively scared," Fenris retorted sarcastically.

"Do you need a quick demonstration to catch the genuine feeling?" Hawke asked while taking a step closer, but stopped as Zevran came behind.

"Do you two need some time alone?" he asked innocently. "This sexual frustration between you two is starting to become bothersome."

"There is no frustration," Fenris replied sharply, then his face drew a sudden grin. "Well, not from my part at least."

"Fenris…" Hawke said innocently.

His eyebrows lifted in an unimpressed look. "Yes?"

"Your pants are open again," Hawke said calmly with a smile. Fenris's cheeks boiled red and he cleared his throat awkwardly as she walked away and Zevran was snorting like a child trying not burst into laughter.

"How about that wheel?" Armand asked finally while approaching the pillars.

"We blow it up?" Zevran asked innocently. "What, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Let's not blow anything else up unless it's  _really_ necessary," Varric said grumpily.

"Oh fine, but I must tell you, my dwarven friend, you are no fun," Zevran said charmingly. "What do you propose?"

"…Throw something you don't need on a pressure plate so we know what's coming for us?" Hawke intervened.

"A bomb?" Zevran asked childishly.

"Can we throw Broody?" Varric asked in amusement.

"You first," Fenris said grumpily.

"Look out!" Hawke shouted as she threw a heavy piece of stone wall between the pillars. As they backed away in terror, the piece of stone banged and fell back in their direction with a burst of storm dust that made all of them cough heavily. "Bloody asschabs piece of shiet puzzle. Why do the Crows need magical barriers?"

"Why would they place a magical barrier if there are pressure plates on the ground already?" Varric asked bewilderedly.

"It's the kind that denies lifeless things to enter. Someone has to actually step on them. Or…" Hawke paused and frowned. "I have to take a leak by the corner. Resume your theories."

"How did they even get such magic?" Fenris asked angrily. "What does a guild of assassins benefit from this?"

"Maximum security, any curious lemming fried to death, annoying the bazingas out of me? Take your pick," Zevran said grumpily and crossed his arms.

"Well I'm not seeing any real pattern here, so, might as well wait for Hawke," Varric said grumpily.

"The woman is the bravest one in the group I take it? I've been there before," Zevran said in amusement.

"It's not that she's the bravest, but…" Varric started but got interrupted.

"She's the craziest," Fenris finished flatly.

"And yet she has survived all this time," Zevran said joyfully. "Clearly, she is doing something right."

"This is ridiculous," Armand said in a low angry voice and started charging towards the barrier. "I'm going i-"

A terrible crowing sound echoed in the room as a swiftly flying blackbird came out of nowhere and charged beside the central pillar holding the missing piece. The very sharp sounds that the bird was making upheaved their awareness and balance. As the men got unsettled and tried to follow the bird with their eyes, the rapid black point in the air appeared to have caught the wheel in its talons and dropped it forcefully in-between the group.

"What the-" Hawke's startled voice echoed from the dark corner. "Where did  _that_ come from?" she asked in amazement as she came out and approached the group while fixing her pants.

"Santo cazzo di Madre, we surrounded by crazy," Zevran shouted as he picked up the wheel and gave it to Hawke. "Here, do what you will with it. After this is done, I'll be thinking about retiring."

"Talk is cheap," Armand said sharply. "You always say that and then you go do it again."

"What can I say? I'm an eternal optimist," Zevran said joyfully. "That and I have recently developed a large amount of incurable ambition."

As Hawke placed the wheel in the empty slot, the mechanisms started to shake and roll, severing the walls in halves, the plates moving away in opposite directions to reveal a curious statue with a one-eyed crow on each side. The clearly now magically sustained red flow of the roses formed a reflective connection with each eye of the crow statues and the light reflected again into each of the pillars. It was a beautiful eerie sight that whispered death and havoc, as well as tantalizing secrets and undoubtedly, a grand aura of mystique.

The plates encaging every pillar unlocked and moved in a spiral as each of them opened, revealing masses of little bottles containing a strange crimson liquid.

"Blood?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"Phylacteries," Hawke explained flatly. "Well, now you know how your assassins always seem to find you wherever you go. Hm. I really didn't expect the Crows to be so resourceful."

"Porca Madonna," Zevran cursed childishly. "This is the  _last_ time they fuck with me."

"I thought phylacteries are only created for mages in order for Templars to track them down if they escape," Fenris intervened coldly.

"They are," Hawke said calmly. "But it works just as well for blood that has no magic in it. The only thing you need is a mage to seal the blood and a Templar to use his fake lyrium-infused magic to connect with the vial and voila – it tracks the owner down before you say apostate."

"How?" Fenris asked sharply with a frown.

"Magic?" Hawke said in amusement, then her face grew dark, a speck of protest glowing bitterly in her eyes. "Well, blood magic. A bit of hypocrisy for the greater good, the Chantry says."

"The ones that condemn and punish the 'sinners' do so while doing the exact same thing?" Fenris asked in a bit of controlled outrage, as if the world finally made sense now. He shook his head with an amused angry smile. "Will wonders never cease."

"I told you they're a bunch of sodding hypocrites," Hawke said grumpily. "But anyway, to return to the matter at hand, yes. Now I'm getting the picture as to why the Crows are so good in their ways. They really don't let any opportunity to strengthen their control pass lightly."

"Well isn't it the same thing?" Zevran asked calmly. "Slavery."

"Privation of liberty," Fenris corrected. "It is not the same thing."

"You've got nothing left to choose but if you live and die before your master makes the decision for you, and nothing left to lose but your mind," Zevran said calmly. "Do not doubt it. It is the same thing."

"I don't follow. Are you comparing the Crows or the Circle to slavery?" Fenris asked with a controlled enough tone.

"Both, my friend," Zevran replied half-bitterly. "You and I and even the mages, we were baptised in the spilled blood of our own kin and it has been trained to run hot, so hot it is cold as ice. You understand?"

"Oh shit, the word that must not be used in front of H-… Broody has been spoken," Varric intervened grumpily.

"I understand," Zevran said quickly and turned his head to Fenris. "You are bothered by my comparison. It is not without cause that you should be so, but I must press on the simple fact that men hold darker taints than any beast. All of them. We should all be immured into a wall for safekeeping, never to get out and harm another."

"By that I imagine you are subtly pertaining to the opposite. That we should all be free so the scales are balanced and let justice be blind as nature is," Fenris said half-sneeringly. "You have not been in the Imperium. If all of Thedas begins letting mages free, we will all end up slaves to them. Trust me."

"Oh, of that I have no doubt," Zevran said calmly, but Fenris's approving look died when he finished his sentence, "that mages will rebel someday and there will be war and death until justice is made. It is a principle of nature to balance itself out through crisis and havoc. It is an accident waiting to happen. It's not about if it would happen, it's about when it would happen."

"And you approve of this?" Fenris asked with a heightened tone, his hands clenching into fists.

"It does not matter. It does not make one speck of a difference whether I cheer for the poor mages or I condemn them as if they were beasts. We are all beasts," Zevran said bitterly and nodded assertively towards Fenris. "Or do you disagree?"

His expression grew darker as Fenris looked at Hawke with the back of his eye and noticed she wasn't intervening with her perfectly reasonable and assertive arguments. "You have a point. But it's not my place to say more, truth be told. All I am saying is that neither the Imperium nor the Chantry give a good answer. And regardless of these realities, we were discussing how imbalanced your comparison of mages and slaves is."

"Look at this," Zevran said quickly and pointed at the thousands of blood vials. "Without this little symbol of containment, one is an illegal alien, an enemy combatant of the Chantry and of the whole world. Does this seem natural to you?"

Fenris pressed his lips hesitantly and didn't answer, to which Zevran smiled lightly. "Well, enough chit-chat I guess. The Crows, the Chantry, the tyrannical kings of Thedas, they've got their rules of conduct, and we have  _ours._  And they are quite simple, if you ask me – be good or be dead."

"I couldn't say it any better," Hawke finally joined.

Zevran chuckled softly, his eyelids half-closing. "I've learned my lessons the hard way, mind you. I think this applies to everyone in this very room – every scar we have earned we had to bleed. Any time is long time, but one should have the right to be in charge of their own time, no?" He approached the vials of blood encaged in the pillars and sighed. "This is the mark of the beast. It could be some drops of blood, or some curious glowing tattoos," he said while looking at Fenris, then turned his head to the others, "or it can simply be a blade in a sheath. I really do not have the time or lack of heart to discriminate."

"Well, that was dramatic," Varric said finally. "This story is gonna score me millions."

"You honest thief, you," Hawke said while shaking her head mockingly.

Zevran laughed. "It is the only way." Then his face changed, growing colder by the second as if it just hit  _now_ that this was a wild goose chase and that there  _was_ a vial with his own blood, a needle in the haystack for all they saw. His shoulders sank and he finally cursed, "Oh santo cazzo, this is like dicks in vinegar."

"Like what in  _what_?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"Now that's an image," Varric said while chuckling.

Zevran turned to them with a controlled scowl, "Tsk. And what are we supposed to do now? Break every vial hoping nobody took mine and Amadeo's to spice up their soup for their own morbid amusement?"

A deep, macabre-sounding voice echoed from a dark corner, "That will not be necessary."

Zevran's legs began to tremble and he backed away slowly, his eyes widened and his throat closing in from tension as a dark-coated man with long silver hair and blue eyes cold and sharp as a blizzard in the harsh winter stepped in from the darkness. He was wearing a vial of blood as a necklace with his arms crossed and locking his self-assured, cruel eyes onto Zevran. Behind him came a dozen light-armoured assassins, each one with a sharper and more fearsome gaze than the other with their slender and needle-pointed black stilettos shining in the red glow of the reflective magical light of the puzzle.

"Pasquale," Zevran said coldly.

The man nodded with an ice-cold grin, "Ah, Zevran. Finally decided to show your face again after so many years." He stretched his arms warmly as a make believe, his large blue eyes were fall of the inevitable zeal and thirst. And his rich silver hair shimmered in the dim light. He was a comely creature, even coated with dust as he was. Fenris could smell the catacombs on his garments. He could smell death on him as through he had lain down with putrid remains. But he was handsome, fine of build and proportion as the rare Tevinter warriors looked like; indeed, not unlike them at all. He could hear the botched Tevinter sounds in his Antivan accent quite perfectly. "Tell me, boy, has life been good to you all this time? Have you been blessed by luck as you usually were in the good old days?"

"But of course. I would not be here otherwise," Zevran said sharply, his controlled but raging hatred for this particular man resounding from his careful, flat tone.

"I hear you helped defeat the Blight in the south. Quite heroic of you, I must say, although I'm  _sure_ ," he said and grinned deviously, "it was not quite so voluntary, no?"

"I've outgrown my ways of taking orders, Pasquale," Zevran said assertively. "It was my honest pleasure to give my blessing luck to a cause that deserved it."

"Yes, I'm certain you were quite thrilled and honoured to simply swoop in and help the one I ordered you to  _kill_ ," Pasquale said mockingly and shook his head with a pretend sigh. "Ah, well, you were always the one to foolishly mix business with pleasure where the opportunity presented itself, weren't you? Yes, that's certainly how I remember it." He laughed heavily and kept his amused grin with his arms crossed and a raised eyebrow. "Tell me then, did your new mistress treat you better than me?"

At the sound of those last words, Zevran pressed his lips and tried to control the fierce instinct to draw his blades out and charge into him. The man knew exactly where to plunge sharply and roll the blade inside the wound to make him lose his temper. He didn't give him an opportunity to say more, as he turned his head to the other elf and said with a disquietingly warm tone, "Amadeo. I am impressed," he said while nodding his head towards him. "Zevran, we all know, he's a simple lemming and a flaming scoundrel that deserves every bit of his fate, but you – I truly did not expect  _you_ to turn."

Unlike Zevran, Armand kept himself extremely cool and sharp with his answers. "I am full of surprises."

"Hm." Pasquale chuckled warmly and turned his head behind. "You hear that, Avicus? Your little Amadeo has managed to surprise us more effectively that you have ever dreamed."

"Indeed he did," a dark-hooded man said in a deep voice from behind, coming from in-between the armoured assassins. He was a tall, dark-haired man with eyes as blue and cold as the guild master's. Armand's blood froze and he swallowed heavily, the reason behind it which Fenris quickly understood was that this man had been his master and by the sound of the name, he was Tevinter and a magister. Suddenly the sharp, bone-hard elf he once knew turned pale and deeply paralyzed, all while still keeping a cool posture. This controlled behaviour effectively slipped everyone's eyes who had not been slaves. He knew better. "It's been a long time, Amadeo."

"Not long enough, I'm afraid," Armand said with dark dead-set eyes and sharply controlled rage.

"It is a joy to see you in good health," Avicus said in an eerie warm tone. "Although I would never have expected it to be otherwise. Not with you."

Amadeo's eyes seemed to say as far as Fenris understood that he wished this man would shut his mouth and that everyone would draw their blades so he could charge into him and slit his throat on the spot. "Cast your eyes elsewhere, mage," Fenris quickly said. Armand spat on the ground in silence at the same time. It was enough said.

The mage caressed his chin while examining Fenris. "I have more enemies that I thought, so it seems. And who might you be?" he asked warmly while looking at Hawke, because she was the only human in their team and the least apparent one to have any business for or against the Crows. She quickly caught her fellow elves' faintly shaking heads that silently told her not to reveal anything about herself, or anyone for that matter.

"Me? I'm nobody, really," Hawke said with a cocky grin.

The long silver-haired man arched his eyebrow curiously and narrowed his eyes. "Well, Nobody, I am Pasquale and this is Avicus. A pleasure to meet you and your companions."

"Such manners, Pasquale, truly in the last place a girl would ever look," Hawke said with a controlled mocking tone.

"But of course. I would not dare to make an entrance otherwise. After all, you are guests in my home," Pasquale replied courteously and bowed shortly. His voice was refined, well-modulated and he spoke a beautiful trade tongue in his strange accent. "Tell me. How does a beautiful lady with clearly fine taste and I'm guessing a few skills up her sleeve," he said and pointed at her blue and red coat and the sheaths she forgot to hide beneath, "end up with such disgusting creatures?" he finished, gesturing mockingly at the elves.

"What can I say – I have bad taste in men," Hawke replied flatly.

Avicus laughed joyfully. "I've watched you from the shadows all this time. You led them here and you solved our ancient puzzle. Clearly, you are a bright girl and a practical spirit," he said and grinned deviously as he continued, "who would do well to reason which side to choose so her day would not be ruined."

"Foolish," Hawke said bravely as she took a step forward in an assertive position. "The ornament around your neck speaks enough for itself on how disgusting a cazzo's  _you_ are, pardon my Orlesian."

"Foolish?" Pasquale asked calmly. "We have never been foolish. We do the work of the Maker as we serve Him through death. Without death, without justice for those who are truly wicked, how could there have been Andraste?"

"You've  _got_ to be kidding," Hawke said with her arms crossed. "That's the dumbest most macabre statement I've ever heard to excuse your guild."

Pasquale sighed while keeping his grin and the dark-haired handsome mage approached her as he stretched his palm out. "Consider it our courtesy – if one so powerful and intelligent as you would become one of our leaders, we could be a legion in the catacombs. As it is, we are a dreadful few." In that moment she understood, that he knew she was a mage, maybe because she solved the puzzle, and the two or three dark-hooded figures behind the other assassins were Crow mages. Then it hit her that the one-eyed raven statues she kept seeing in the endless hallways and passages were probably magical wards which allowed them to see their group wherever they went.

Hawke made a dismissive gesture. "I want no part of you people."

"Such haste is criminal, my lady," Avicus said calmly. "Come for a moment at least. Only to you would I give up my leadership. Come see my lair with its hundreds of skulls that wronged innocents like you."

How disgusted she was, how much she deplored him and the other man, and all their followers. She could see the intellect in them, the cleverness and the hope behind their devious path. Would that Zevran and Armand were more set to quickly put an end to them and all their kith and kin. But they remained silent, probably because they were struck by fear in waiting for Hawke not to turn on them and join two men they were afraid of.

"Your lair with a hundred skulls?" she asked in amusement. "Don't make me laugh."

"We are creatures of the dark," Avicus said in all simplicity as he tried to approach her. Her blood froze in wondering if this whole charade was all because they indeed knew she was a mage who had a whole additional set of warrior skills they could greatly benefit from and that's why they were exposing such zeal and interest in her instead of downright attacking them. "We must never go into places of light, no matter how much we try and think it is right. The Maker has cursed us to the shadows."

"What Maker?" Hawke asked aggressively. "I go wherever I will. I kill those who are evil and the world belongs to me as much as I live out of it. And you ask me to "come down in the earth" with you? Into a catacomb full of skulls?" she asked in amusement while keeping a firm tone. "You ask me to rule over your fools in the name of what? A demon? You're too clever for your creed, my friend. Forsake it."

"No," Avicus said calmly, shaking his head and stepping backwards. "Mine is of spiritual purity. You can't tempt me from it, not with all your power and your apparent goodness. And I give my welcome to you." She had sparked something in him. They could all see it in his eyes. He was drawn to her, to her words, but he couldn't admit it.

"You'll never be a legion, let alone a spiritually pure one," Hawke said firmly. "The world will never allow it. You're nothing. So why don't you give up your trappings before I fall asleep from this foolish crusade you're pointlessly trying to lure me into?" Avicus drew closer again, as if she were a light and he wanted to be in it. He looked into her eyes, as if he were trying to read her thoughts of which he could get nothing from except those she said in words. Her companions' patience was nearing an end, Armand clenching his fists, Zevran slowly going for his pocket and Fenris for his sheaths.

"We are so gifted," Avicus said calmly, his face drawing a broad smile and his eyes narrowing. "There is so much to be observed, to be learned. Let me take you away from these filthy catacombs and show you how much you could be with my help." He drew even closer and something changed in his face. "You fear your magic." Fenris saw her clench her teeth. "You question yourself every day, if you are a beast or a saint. My thought is, one can be both. I can-" Avicus stopped and swiftly turned his head to her left, as did she, only to see him throwing a searing beam of light into Fenris who tried to silently charge into him. The spell blew right into all three elves and threw them into a wall.

Varric cleared his throat quickly, which she knew meant  _Look wherever you haven't looked yet._ She looked above and saw the shadows of a few archers hidden between the gargoyle and raven statues in the walls. "STAY DOWN!" she screamed to the elves as they got up and she drew her swords out while rolling down and backwards from Avicus and the others. They weren't going to kill her first, that was obvious, which meant she could do well to distract them into catching her at least.

It was not a lost cause, so it seemed. Zevran threw a very strong smoke bomb in the enemy group and as he did so, Armand climbed on top of the walls in the fog and gutted every archer hidden up and above that Varric didn't get to shoot. Thank the Maker that Fenris glowed blue in the mist, because she needed to join forces with him and taunt the dozen assassins that were now trying to go after the others as they were issued by Pasquale.

Fenris punched an assassin brutally as he tried to rush over to Armand and Hawke jumped and kicked two of them that were going after Zevran. The two elves escaped in time and hid in the shadows to properly backstab the  _backstabbers._ To their fortune, Armand made it his business to kill the mages first and with Varric's help from a distance and Zevran's surprisingly swift moves in stealth he managed to off two of them as he crept up from behind and made them trip.

Hawke tried to find and taunt either Pasquale or Avicus, but she couldn't see them anywhere, which was not a good sign. As Fenris came beside her, they stood back-to-back with their swords out forming barriers. "You know what to do," Hawke said calmly, to which Fenris nodded firmly and turned his markings on again to make any enemy run after him. Some of them bit their bait, and she slit one of the assassins' legs as they tried to chase him, only to get a surprise, but missed backstab from behind. She elbowed the figure and turned around. Of course it "missed", it was Pasquale with a very fine black longsword shimmering in the smoke and darkness. As they bumped swords, she intercepted his attack and turned to her side with her elbow raised, spinning and kicking her elbow into his shoulder. As she did so, she reached behind him and plunged her sword through his shoulder and kicked his back to the ground.

It didn't kill him and her chance to finish it slipped away as she got attacked from behind by two assassins. She turned around and formed a barrier with her swords as the two rogues tried to stab her, one with two sharp stilettos and the other with a longsword. She side-stepped the longsword attack by half-turning as she intercepted the sword with hers and shoved her elbow in the assassin's throat, then she quickly turned around to face the other one who was trying to backstab her. She bumped her sword into his daggers, shoving one away from his hand and grabbing him by the other. She dragged him by the hand lower and slit his throat. When she turned behind, it was too late. The guild master was gone.

Her frustration did not compare to the one Zevran had. He plunged his longsword and his dagger into two separate groups coming from different directions with no mercy as they ricocheted into three bodies on one side and two on the other. Armand remained close to him, even though his eyes were scanning the field for his own private enemy which was nowhere in sight. An assassin came from behind, swinging a broader sword at him and leaving a large part of his body open, and he quickly slit his chest and shoulder, kicking him into another one who was coming from behind the dead man. Fenris turned off his glow as Hawke finished the remaining rogues in sight and silently went for the ranged mages who were hiding behind… the tempest. A lightning storm was forming above their heads. As soon as he saw one dark-robed figure, he turned his glow on from the shadows to surprise it. The mage bent shortly to hit his leg with the sharp end of his staff and as he left his neck open, Fenris rapidly decapitated the mage. His fellow mage threw fireballs at him, which he intercepted with his sword nonchalantly as he slowly approached him. He was backing up recklessly in a corner and was probably low on the mana he kept wasting on him, so he tried to defend himself from Fenris's sword with his staff. As the mage intercepted Fenris's fake open attack, he raised the pommel of his sword that bumped into the staff, with the other end going down and cleaving through the man's chest.

The smoke persisted in this part of the room, as well as the tempest above their heads which now was clearly coming from somewhere else. Avicus needed to be stopped, because he was throwing spirit damage in-between this great display of primal channelling. Hawke got surprise-attacked again by Pasquale with his two-handed techniques. It was time to let the other sword go and do the same. As he rushed to thrust his sword at her, she intercepted it with her sword, and she noticed he didn't apply pressure to the outside. Instead, Pasquale tried to displace the thrust to the left and moved in to interrupt her follow-up attacks. With his sword on top of hers, now applying pressure, Hawke responded with swiftly stepping in and redirecting Pasquale's blade to his right. Now it seemed more and more like he was giving her chances to prove her might. As she powerfully redirected his blade to his right, Pasquale's inertia made him bend forward with his sword, to which she slammed her arms in-between his and immobilized his sword. Thank the Maker that Pasquale tried to grab her main hand to trap her sword, rather than proceeding with an attack, because his sword was right under her torso. She took the advantage to execute an elbow strike to his throat, then she shoved him with might and threw him over his left leg as he fell down. By doing so, she continued to trap his arm, which wrenched the sword out of her hands. In that moment, she was sure it was Fenris who dragged her away forcefully by the coat and picked up her sword. They ran into the smoke and got right beside the central pillar with the most phylacteries, where it turned out, Avicus was channelling his spells.

She clenched her teeth and reach out for him as Fenris did the same. With a swiftness that surprised them, he escaped their attack. For some reason, she knew exactly where he would go, so she ran after him and caught him, spinning him around after she threw a direct downward shot to his shoulder. She dragged him back to the pillar and had her sword shoved into his robe so he wouldn't escape. She looked at the phylacteries and closed her eyes, then in a swift motion opened her palms and used a massive forcewave to make the ground shake. She touched the pillars and they started to collapse, along with the blood vials that in vast numbers began to break.

"Never come near me again, do you hear?" she screamed at him. Avicus struggled against her immobilizing sword. "I can kill you by fire or by this sword if I so choose it," she shouted. "And why don't I choose it? Why don't I choose to slaughter you all miserable vermin? Why don't I do it? Because I loathe the violence of it and the cruelty, even though you're more evil than the other people I simply killed not a minute ago."

He was frantic under her grip, but of course, he couldn't have the slightest chance to do more, at least for a few seconds. She wished now, in her crazed state, that someone would come back to her spot and finish him off, as well as Pasquale. The blood from the vials poured into a cascade around them, on their clothes, on the ground, shards falling everywhere. Was her mind too attuned or distracted that she wouldn't let herself dragged into this abysmal filth?

His face glared at her with hatred in his smile, "You are perfect. And I curse you." She was taken aback by his contradiction and defiance.

"I warn you to stay away from me," Hawke shouted again. "Curse your god and your excuses, curse everything that you stand for. But whatever you do, stay clear of me for your own sake." He was planted there, looking up in awe as well as fury at her. She brought up the flames in her hands, channelling another forcewave to further animate the fire, and she quelled it with might and sent it down towards him. She willed it to kindle only to the edge of his black monkish robes. At once the cloth around his feet began to smoke and he crawled back in horror. He turned round and round in panic and tore the scorched pieces of robe off himself and trying with the other hand to shoot spirit damage at her without much success. Was he pretending? Once again he looked at her, fearless as before, but enraged in his helplessness. "Know what I could do to you," Hawke said aggressively, "and never come near me-"

Something like a harsh blow came from behind, mighty and painful, deeply dissipating her consciousness. It wasn't a blade, though it might as well have been that too in addition to what hit her, for she wouldn't have felt it further. She felt the blood magic in the last seconds, before the dark crept in, and she felt herself fall to her knees, her heart turning into a thousand tiny searing blades, attacking itself from inside out.

 


	33. I See Chronos (Beyond, A Helping Hand)

The excruciating pain, that harsh blow that imploded inside out of her, as if those millions of falling shards from the phylacteries had all amassed to crush her defenseless heart, it brought her on the verge of tasting what was beyond death, what was  _worse_  than death. The crumbling image of the catacombs simply went deaf and the motion of time and action continued, but seemed perfectly pointless. Like life was continuing outside of time and purpose and the world was simply not there, but full of it. Now finding herself again in the heart of cruelty, she knew the particulars of rape, the stinking grease, the squabbling, the curses over the ruin of the lamb. She felt a hideous unsupportable powerlessness. The one that the elves had also come to know and hate, but drink it further as if they were utterly blind at the sight of poison. Loathsome men, men against the gods and against nature. Whatever the cost, if this was death, she would accept it if it meant they were safe. It was her responsibility, it was her idea. She owed it to Dorian for Armand to be safe, she wanted to better the wrongs he had lived through, she wanted Varric to come out of it alive, the one who eagerly remained at her side with no questions asked. Lastly, she would have gone with this mage if it meant not taking…

The last thing she felt was Malcolm's presence, like a summoned wisp from the beyond, cradling her from the collapse, making her numb and fully senseless, when the darkness had descended upon her. She heard something simple she knew all too well was his words, although she couldn't actually hear his  _voice._ But the presence said "Fight. Fight!" No matter what, just fight. She couldn't feel her body, she was already falling. But she'd be damned,  _damned to dreaded bits of the Void,_ if she wouldn't…

She couldn't hear herself bravely shouting  _Eat shit_ to Avicus. She didn't feel the massive beam of radiant violet she let out with the last poor remains of her magic before collapsing to the ground. The wave elapsed in beams out of each finger and charged with massive force into the mage, and that was it. Quick thinking, but utterly damning, for this was the death of her. She didn't feel it when something intercepted her fall, but she didn't feel the Fade either. It did not hurt her then. It did not shake her. She was too pale of soul, too numbed, too used to seeing all things as figments in a series of unconnected dreams. Very likely, she could not allow herself to believe such a thing.

Yet perhaps this was what it meant – dying. Pitch-black, utter darkness. You hit the bucket and that was it. With so many regrets encaged in the mountain of your despair, that it was more than enough to awaken the magma of remorse, of things that hadn't been said and that will now never be, all from underneath. Turn the sleeping vessel in a volcano. That was it. A dormant volcano, suddenly awakened in the last moments of breath, nearing the eruption only to meet a large lid covering its opening… And so it implodes and destroys itself from inside out, because the days you saved to release your despair and make peace with this underground ocean of sadness and happiness, joy and regret, wandering sighs and forgotten smiles, faint little love... they have no more time to be let out. Brutal hunger, time has, my volcano now learns. Can you hear me cry out to you? Words I thought I'd only joke and figure out later. Come see this, Father, just look at me, everyone - you've got front row seats to the penitence ball! Scenes over scenes now seem so unkind. I can't defend. Maybe I don't like it, but I have no choice. Maybe there's a reason things don't go my way, a lesson that I didn't get to learn in life but I will in death. Just like the change of seasons, it is my turn.

Once, a long time ago, I thought that I knew everything, that I could fight and defend, the fire burning on and on, 'til all is gone except my own little flame that always kept me on. To be the white knight gleaming with hope when others have none, even if all the answers disagreed with the questions held for me. And behold, my resignation is late even now in death!

And then, then there was no time.

Time chasing time… It's taken mine.

_Tick, tock. Can't let time win,_ her soul heard. She felt something glowing alight, perhaps it was the wisp exploding and taking her beyond the realms that men knew, perhaps it was simply Death laughing joyfully. Only that it felt like a thousand bright lights casting a shadow, a loop in the whirlwind, -  _maybe it really is Father -_  that stopped her fall and feel her heart beating again, but as if it was punching the walls slowly with all its might. Tick, tock… tick, tock… Can't let time win.

* * *

It was filth again, the smell of hemp, the rustling of the rats on the cold hard floors. It didn't occur to her at all just how much lack of perception she had, for her eyes had been open for some time just roaming the walls without actually understanding anything from the scenery. Time to laugh again, but she was too sick. She was emptied out of magic and the daze of this emptiness inside her was more crushing than the actual blow she took to the heart. A prison inside a prison. Wait, was she even rambling about? This  _was_ a prison, wasn't it? That's why the word streamed into consciousness in placid metaphors.

_Creator noster, qui es in caelis_

"Maker's bloody testicles," she said, words propelled out in empty space, without being heard in her impaired consciousness.

_Sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum_

"Father?" she said again, but couldn't hear herself.

_Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra_

She was losing perception with every second, only feeling the pressure in her forehead and the daze from the absence of all human strength and magic. She didn't understand who she was, where she was, what those words were. Only that they kept being uttered.

A torch blazed in front of her, but the light from the flame was shooting in severed beams at her face, that much she understood. Fire by fire, it scorched her mind and unsettled her soul, but brought her closer to the realm of conscious thought. She tilted her head on the ground and saw the iron bars.

_Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie_

No... this was a  _familiar_ voice that kept muttering a familiar language. Once again, she retreated into her deepest mental hiding place. She had no body anymore. She lay on the cold ground, unfeeling of her body. She put her mind at work on the tone of this voice near her, such sweet and faint voice.

And so on it went, the eternal incomprehensible uttering, the voice gradually becoming weak in the silence.

_Et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris_

She did not give responses.

She spoke no words to him. She did not even let him know she was there. She couldn't even explain this terrible fate which had befallen them, but more because she was simply out of this world. She wanted her father to simply shut up. They had enough time in the prison of the Void to argue over untimely tragedies and unforgivable regrets.

Yet on he went, now that is charges mercifully slept, muttering alone to comfort himself, or perhaps merely to remind himself he was still existing, "Et ne nos iuducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo."

_Fenris._  She had slipped into a shock near despair, as she realized this was his voice. She let her mind recover the sight of blowing the spirit wave on Avicus, the sight of people burning. She recovered the image of Fenris going in front of her. Fenris, a living blue-glowing torch, turning and twisting in the fire, his growls of pain like animal roars and his arms reaching heavenward like spiders in the bloody flame coming at them. And the invisible wisp protecting her from falling, like a comforting specter. Whatever this impression of her father did from the beyond, Fenris did in the physical world.

She rose up, panic-stricken and going haywires while tumbling over the iron bars in hot and cold palpitations. "Fenris?" she called out his name in desperation.

The voice was no more. Time to laugh again at herself for hearing ghosts after death, but she was still too sick to taste the irony. Instead, she felt like crying. She was going to burn in the Void. This was the Void.

But then the voice came again from her right, deep and stricken with anguish, "Hawke, you're- … I thought you-"

"I'm fine," she said as quick as thunder. "Although I thought I died and ended up in the Void. Heart crushing and head blowing up, then pitch-black, only to wake up in terrible smells and filthy spaces. There were simply not enough reasonable guesse-  _AH_

The adrenaline rush expired on her legs and she fell down while still holding at the bars.

"Hawke!" she heard Fenris shout abruptly. "What's happening?"

" _Nuh-_ nothing, I-" she stuttered and growled in pain as she half-rose from her back. "Empty reserves, that's all."

"You were out for a long time." A flash of bangs and voices came to her, from when she probably awoke for a few seconds. She heard someone throwing someone else in, then the door had slammed shut with a deafening crash; she initially felt relief that nothing violent happened afterwards, but once the captors were gone, that relief evaporated; now it grew rampant and powerfully magnified.

"You didn't come at the same time with me," she said finally. She dragged herself to sit on the floor with her back against the wall that was separating their two cells. "What happened? Where are … are they…"

Fenris hesitated with his answer. He got distracted with battling assassins and remarkably distanced himself from Hawke and Avicus when he saw him cast the red and black fumes around her body. He rushed up in front of her after she had apparently cast a violet light that fried the mage and threw him into a wall. What followed he didn't remember. He only knew that when he awoke, they were in a different hallway, and there were only Zevran and Varric there to fill him in on the details. Hawke and Armand were taken by the two masters after Avicus had cast a barrier and ran with Pasquale and their unconscious companions through the hidden passage they came from.

Varric was panic-stricken, something one could never notice unless they chose to look at the faint trembling in his legs. He contained his emotions and listened to Zevran as he explained the plan he had just then cooked up to save them. They had to cheat their way to the prison by taking the long road, double upon their route through the spiral they initially avoided a few hours before.

They reached the edge of a hallway that was stripped of stairs, the floor far below harboring their collapse. Zevran took out a grapple and tangled it into a pillar, issuing Varric to hold on to him as they went down, then Fenris would have his turn and go down all by himself. Whence they reached the floor below, Zevran shouted at him to come down. He had his foot right on the edge, looking down at them, and he couldn't bring himself to motion. A sudden rush came over him and paralyzed him beyond repair. He felt his face draw a haunted scowl and he pressed his lips tight, before turning around and running in the opposite direction as fast as he could. What followed after was simple – and foolish. He roamed the old passages alone, driven by a force so great and fierce, he himself did not have the stomach to question. Eventually he got ambushed and captured.

"Varric and Zevran were safe when I left them. Armand on the other hand was captured at the same time with you," he finally uttered unemotionally, because there was too much emotion that he simply had to contain.

"When you left them?" she asked bewilderedly. "Why in blazes would you leave them?"

Fenris didn't answer for a while, seeming as if he was gathering his thoughts. "We had to find another way into the prison, so I thought it best if we split."

"How much smoke did you inhale that it made you 'think' it was  _best_ to leave your group and wonder alone in an ancient catacomb nesting assassins and blood mages?" Hawke almost shouted angrily.

"It doesn't matter any longer," Fenris muttered, sitting with his back against the wall without knowing she was just beyond the stone wall doing the same thing.

Hawke would have slapped him if he were in the same cell as she was, but since his luck seemed to  _finally_ spark with the current geography, she changed the subject. "Do you know where Armand is?"

"No. But no doubt he is near," Fenris replied calmly. "The mage values him and will not let him go again."

She swallowed heavily and thought it would be best to shift his focus away from the resemblance of his and Armand's situations. This was his deepest fear coming alive for someone else, under his own eyes. And they couldn't afford to be unsettled now. "We will find them. And when we do, do not doubt that I will make them beg for death."

He didn't answer at first, and she imagined he was shaking his head or rolling his eyes at her brave, but ultimately foolish remarks. They were more than doomed at the moment. "I'll take your word on that," he finally said.

After a few moments of silence, he was the one to say something again. "I wonder if Danarius keeps a phylactery of my blood that he uses to track me down."

"Even if he does, it wouldn't be of much use to him," Hawke said quickly. "It only glows when the person is near, as in… in a roughly hundred mile radius. Even here, there's no chance he'd find you. As for Zevran and Armand, well… it's obvious why we had company in the catacombs."

"Then it is good that I ran so far away," he said calmly. Really, really good, indeed.

She wanted so desperately bad to divert his attention, but she couldn't bring herself to rise to her feet and attempt to get them out.

* * *

Still bound in the cell, while Hawke was out, Fenris listened to a hollow preternatural voice from far away in the prison chanting with a villainous gusto the awful hymn, Dies Irae, or Day of Wrath. A low drum carried on the zesty rhythm, as if it were a song for dancing rather than a terrible lament of the Final Days. On and on went the Tevinter words speaking of the day when all the world would be turned to ashes, when the great trumpets of the Maker would blast to signal the opening of all graves and the Old Gods themselves would perish. Death itself and nature would both shudder. All souls would be brought together, no soul able anymore to hide anything from the Maker. Out of His book, every sin would be read aloud. Vengeance would fall upon everyone. Who was there to defend them, but the Judge Himself, their majestic god. Their only hope was the pity of this God, the God who had suffered just as much because of them as they soon will at his behest. As if he had made a sacrifice all this time, and it wouldn't go to waste.

Yes, beautiful old words, but they issued from an evil mouth, the mouth of one who did not even know their meaning, who uttered regally along the tapping drum as if ready for a feast.

He would have fallen apart in anguish if not for having heard Hawke's peaceful breathing from the other cell that let him know she was still alive. Her breathing was a much more soothing chant that powerfully drowned the dreaded little voice singing on to its spirited little drum.

He knew it was not her fault. Even if, if not for her, he probably wouldn't have gone into this mess. Although he was probably lying to himself, because he would not turn his back on a person who went through the same thing and had a chance at total freedom. What was foolish was to make whatever became of Armand as a condition to his own fate. If he would not get out alive from this, what hope would he have to be free and lead a normal life? It was foolish, and he would not allow himself to sink his thoughts deeper into it. He didn't have to work on that very hard, because there was another equally powerful, if not bigger issue haunting him and that was Hawke's safety, though he would never admit it. This too was a much too tantalizing thought to brood over in such times, because he was now more than ever proving to himself just how far he would go for another being… and that he had found a purpose and a reason worthy enough to be ready to die for.

_Only I heard the rustling, impish laughter everywhere. Only I know how many preternatural monsters are lurking bout us, as we were brought into this light of a monstrous fire, entombed in the prison._

* * *

He was touched by her bravery, and he pulled his thoughts together. He must stop shrinking in horror from his last memories and he must imagine them living, getting out of this dreaded place and going back home.  _Home?_

His thoughts were smitten away from a sudden question coming from the other cell. "What was that, what you kept saying to yourself?"

"What was I… saying to myself?" Fenris repeated her question because he didn't understand it. "Oh… that," he uttered faintly, as if he appeared to be embarrassed. "I was… praying."

He expected a long pause from her, but she rapidly asked, "What were you praying for?"

"Is it important?" Fenris asked calmly, issuing away with defenses.

"I wouldn't know unless you told me first," Hawke replied suavely. "Well?"

"It was just a Tevinter prayer," Fenris pressed, averting any insight on his troubled mind. "I did not really know what I was praying for."

"Well, how did the prayer go?" Hawke insisted in a soothing tone.

Fenris inhaled defensively and pressed his lips, but finally gave in. "Our Maker, that resides in the skies, hallowed by Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is beyond. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."

"I really didn't see you as the praying for deliverance after being captured type," Hawke mused lightly.

"That's because I'm not," Fenris muttered sharply.

"Maybe that's because you don't get captured easily," Hawke said with a faint smile.

"And yet here I am," Fenris replied sorrowfully. "My luck has apparently expired."

She would have said  _Oh come on you pessimistic idiot, of course we'll get out of here,_ but a pain in her lungs made her cough out heavily and she had to pull herself together. She had to find the strength to rise from the ground and proceed with their escape…however impossible it seemed at the moment.

"Are you alright?" Fenris asked a bit sharply, perhaps containing his concern and impatience. "Hawke."

"I told you I'm fine, Fenris," Hawke said assertively, feeling the fever on her forehead and pressing her eyes shut. "Empty reserves, that's all, like I said."

"And what does that mean exactly?" Fenris pressed with obvious discomfort in his voice.

"It means I'll be alright soon enough and you needn't concern yourself," Hawke uttered confidently.

"Don't lie to me," Fenris muttered harshly. "I saw what that mage did to you. I saw you casting all those spells. You should be-"

"Dead?" Hawke interrupted him. "And I'm not. So, this is old news."

"Vishante kaffas." He should have been more vigilant; more –

"Praying and now going back to cursing. You're the perfect Andrastian, aren't you?" Hawke mused sarcastically.

"You need lyrium, don't you?" he pressed. "Otherwise you're bound to lose your mind again, am I wrong?"

"If that were the case, I should be going insane lunatic right now, but as you can see, I'm only the good old part-lunatic part-insane Hawke. And even so, I don't have any pots."

He hesitated with his answer, but it didn't matter now either way. "… Ihad one. The bastard took it away."

"You took a lyrium potion with you?" Hawke asked in confusion. "For me?"

"It matters little now," Fenris said. "Next time, take your own. Else I'm going to personally make sure you don't see the light of day."

Hawke snorted in amusement. "Wow. You're cute when you go all commanding mad protector on me."

"Oh? Well I am about to get utterly  _adorable_ soon," Fenris replied in an all-serious grumpy tone.

"If Zevran were here, he'd probably say  _An invitation! Succes!_ " Hawke mused back.

"Or take remark of the opportunity to fulfill some perverted prison fantasy," Fenris replied with discomfort in his tone.

Hawke chuckled at his words and arched away an eyebrow. "What are you wearing?"

"What am I … wearing?" Fenris asked in confusion. "They did not take away my clothes. I'm still-"

"No, not like that," Hawke said in amusement, but decided to give up. "Nevermind."

"And here I thought only the pirate tried to guess away the color of my underclothes," Fenris muttered back waspishly.

Hawke gasped childishly. "So you  _were_ playing dumb. Bah, this act of innocence is getting stale, Fenris, you know that?"

"I do," Fenris said without fault, drawing up a faint smile. "But it's fairly entertaining  _for me_ ; to make you all think I'm innocent."

She snorted. "Yeah, 'cause you're a real heartbreaker on the inside, I'm sure," Hawke said sarcastically.

"I said no such thing," Fenris mused calmly. "I might understand some dirty code, but I am no," he paused to roll his eyes, as if she would even see that, "Adonis."

Hawke felt the annoyance in his tone as he said the last word, beyond the appearance of mocking. "Yeah, I saw just how much you made out of his  _dirty code._  You really don't like the guy, do you?"

Fenris pressed his lips in annoyance. "I don't – _anything-_ him. What would be the point?"

Hawke laughed. "Well, he  _is_ a rather important figure; if not for the fact that he's the  _Warden_ 's husband, then for the simple reality that he is fairly conditional to our escape."

"Yes, and he made it quite clear that he was married from all the advances he made on you," Fenris uttered in disgust rather quickly, followed by a pause to realize how easy it was every time he talked to her after a while, just how easy it came to be that he would express himself without care for feeling stripped.

Hawke smirked joyfully. "You know he was doing that only to avert our attention from his true identity, right? And you bit his bait quite fast, Sir." He didn't answer, so she thought this was a good topic to avert attention from the restlessness of being imprisoned. She shook her head and grinned shortly. "Who would have thought you were the jealous type?"

"There was no jealousy," Fenris pressed in annoyance, gritting his teeth and clenching his grip on his knees. She didn't say anything, giving him only silence so he knew he didn't have to see her to know her eyebrow was already reaching for the heavens from that bold-faced lie. "Fine… maybe I was a bit," he rolled his eyes as he paused, "jealous."

"First step is admitting it," Hawke mused joyfully.

One corner of his lips tensed in annoyance as he frowned. After a few moments of silence, his faint voice reached her ear. "Does it… bother you?"

"No, of course not," Hawke said firmly. "In fact-" she paused and Fenris raised an eyebrow as he waited for her to continue. "Well there's no real way to say this without sounding evil, but, I did kind of… enjoy it."

"You enjoyed it?" he asked in confusion.

"Not your distress, just…" She rolled her eyes and laughed softly to herself. "Well, it felt nice to know you would be set off by the chance of –"

"I understand," Fenris interrupted her.

"Sorry," Hawke said with a crooked smile, even if he couldn't see her.

"Apology not accepted," Fenris said in amusement, but keeping his sharp tone.

"Excuse me?" Hawke asked in amusing outrage. "Did I hurt your feelings or something?"

"It doesn't matter. What matters now is that you owe it to me to make up for your… " he grinned deviously, "impertinence."

Hawke's eyebrow really could have reached the seventh level of heaven by now. "My impertinence?"

"For not telling your pursuer to back off and as it followed, making me continue in my jealous ways," Fenris pretended innocently.

"Oh, bugger off. I know Armand told you he was married and it was all a big joke." He didn't answer, perhaps to gather up his thoughts and track down whatever memory that slipped when Armand used the common tongue to tell him that. She explained, "Yes, I heard  _married_ and  _joke_. I also heard  _horse_  and  _death_ , but regardless, I didn't need much to make up the general idea. And you didn't tell me afterwards, making  _me_ continue to work my ass off in trying to unmask the bastard." She grinned shortly. "We are  _even_."

Fenris exhaled and smirked as if he were proud to admit defeat. "Touché."

"And even so, what am I to you that I should tell a pursuer to back off?" Hawke pressed deviously.

How utterly annoying she could be sometimes, pressing his buttons in the most inappropriate of times. Even so, it was shamefully thrilling to admit he was intrigued by her resistance and cocksure attitude. "That solely depends on you, Hawke," he said nonchalantly.

"I strongly disagree," she replied confidently. "It's up to you more than you think."

"No more riddles, please," Fenris pressed grumpily.

"Shit," she shouted suddenly. "Ah, Maker's tittie-fucking breath, Andraste, Hessarrian, Shartan and the fucking donkey sitting behind!" She stroke a fever and really needed something to get her strength back, because her stomach was twirling and her veins were thickening in pain.

"Venhedis. What is happening with you? Tell me," Fenris shouted in anger, having lost his patience.

Hawke growled in annoyance. "I'm a warrior who happens to also be a mage in massive withdrawal; what do you think is happening?"

He hated himself that he couldn't do anything for her. Converting his fear into anger was all he knew in these situations.

"This is exactly why I hate that man so viciously bad," Hawke finally muttered, the pain still resounding from her tone. "Maker I would kill him."

"Why didn't you?" Fenris asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Back there, you had him. But you kept shouting at him and broke the phylacteries instead of going for the kill."

A long pause from her part, followed by a deep sigh. "I don't know. My mind was playing tricks on me." She thought of how much she did want to kill him. "I wanted to scare him, really scare him. I knew that I couldn't kill him alone, but I could at least keep his focus on me instead of shifting it to…"

"To what in blazes would he have shifted his attention to? He was drawn to you from the very beginning," Fenris said angrily, cruel distress in his tone as he finished.

Hawke closed her eyes shut and sighed. "To you."

"Me?"

"You didn't hide your special abilities. They would have went after you if I hadn't led them on with my own confident speeches. They were looking for whoever would be most useful to them. As you see, they didn't kill me. They brought me  _here._ " She sighed again in annoyance and muttered sharply, "And you followed, like an idiot."

Stupid woman. "Why would you do that?"

"I have already answered that. So they wouldn't go after you," she pressed firmly.

He lost it, beyond a doubt. He shouted at her, "So the best strategy is to offer  _yourself_ on a plate?"

"I didn't offer myself on a plate, I simply used their already existing interest in me to my advantage. You didn't see me surrender willingly now, did you?"

"Still," Fenris said and paused. "It was foolish."

Hawke pressed her lips in annoyance. "What was more foolish is you going in alone to find me and letting yourself get captured. You made all my efforts to ensure your safety go straight in the garbage."

"Right, forgive my honest attempts to ultimately do the same thing. I shall endeavor not to give a damn in the future," Fenris said angrily.

"Good," Hawke said firmly, to his surprise. "Then it's settled."

"Whatever makes you happy," Fenris muttered sarcastically.

"Oh, don't give me that," Hawke said in annoyance. "I'm not your blighted master."

Fenris frowned deeply. "Why in the Void would you think-"

"Because I'm a mage, Fenris. That hasn't changed and it never will."

He shook his head in amazement. "The redundancy of your statement is undeniable. I simply can't see your point."

"Well, how much time before you blame me for whatever is going to happen to us if this ends badly, hm?

"The decisions were my own, Hawke. Don't stretch your paranoia to such outrageous extents." He sighed when she kept silent, so he pressed with honesty, "You know I'm sane enough to understand the difference between youand the man who put us in here."

She exhaled in a small fit of sorrow. "Yes, and say… if the Templars one day come to my doorstep and take me away – not  _kill_ me, just take me away… what would you do?"

His sudden silence was enough. She sighed. "Well, points for honesty."

This impossible woman and her trapping questions.

She was herself again, hideously wounded, a botched reassemblage of the strong angelic child she'd been before his attempts to bring out the woman in her, when she was locked out in the brutal morning to meet her death with a clear mind. The recent event with the blood mage brought to light the awful unhealed evidence that she was always going to be a mage, a blasphemous creation of nature, perhaps, as it turned her to a monument in ash – because she would always be susceptible to the transformation he kept condemning at mages. She only needed a noble reason to do it, though she might not dare to admit it. And if she would ever come to be what he expected of other mages - only not  _her_  if she would only allow him to further prove that statement - she would be no less than ready to be burned down at the stake or smitten by his very sword.

And even so, perhaps she would fear he would be too dried up of his own free will not to follow her through hell as if she was a twisted reflection of his master. Perhaps that drained her of her own will to truly allow him in, despite her full acceptance of him as a being and eternal friend. Rather like a beautiful rose skillfully dehydrated in sand by its own will, so that it retains its proportions, nay, even its fragrance and even its tint, perishing, but not truly dying. For all the good she did and the people she saved, she was perhaps becoming dry, heartless, a stranger to herself. It seemed as if they were racing together for who gives in to emptiness first. He was no stranger to being utterly alone and unaccepting of oneself. He had no doubt that he could turn into a beast again. Understanding all too well the limits of her warped spirit, it probably would not be long before she dismissed him and he would have to swallow this illusion of a happy life and move on.

Even so, what did he have to tell this honest good woman, Hawke, this all too self-loathing version of the stronger and brasher Malcolm Hawke, he could only presume, except that in the world she would come to find enough good to sustain her, and that in her soul she must find the courage to exist as she was regardless of what she was born with. He could make no judgement. If indeed, it was her choice even now to go on living and fighting for whatever she believed in, did he really need to remind her of that? Without of course, looking to images of heroes such as the Warden and villains such as Avicus to give her an artificial or short-lived peace, because she was called upon by fate to restore balance in her own way. Her outside actions were quite clear in their intent, but inside, she was a mess. One other horrible inescapable and unforgettable ingredient went into the core of the issue.

That it seemed obvious, now more than ever, that there was not only the great stone wall they were both resting their backs on, that was separating them in their own private cages – and that there was more than just two physical cages that entrapped them in their helplessness and dictating their tale.

Now he wished more than ever that the perverted blonde elf would swoop in to save them and gloat at how ridiculously awesome he was compared to their idiocy for getting themselves caught. Ah, but what did it matter? It didn't seem that they were going to show up and save the day; their end was nearing and inevitable. It did not matter anymore.

"Remember when Varric was set out to take his revenge and gave you those insane punishments?" Fenris asked calmly. "Specifically, when he made you guess the ingredients of his new drink."

"Yes, I blacked out and woke up in his bed with you sleeping the night face-down on the table," Hawke remembered in amusement.

"Remember when you climbed one the roof and put a hand over my mouth the moment Varric and the abomination came out looking for you?"

It seemed too far away in time to recall an already blind memory. "Vaguely."

Fenris sighed and continued, "I restrained you, because you kept muttering in your half dazed state that they were going to take you. That they were coming after you and you were afraid."

"Is this story going anywhere?" Hawke asked defensively, because she didn't care to recall moments when she wasn't in control of her vulnerabilities.

"Patience, woman," Fenris said sharply and smirked.

She looked to her right at the iron bars. "Yeah, we've got time."

"I could only assume you were talking about the Templars; that they were coming to take you," Fenris continued calmly. "Well imagine me, holding you in that deeply fearful state," he described and gestured as he did so despite her not being able to see, "placing my head over yours and telling you that nobody was going to take you."

"Nice dream," Hawke said defensively. "That was not what you said."

"And how would you know?" Fenris asked angrily. "Am I supposed to believe you suddenly remember what happened?"

"I don't remember one bit, but I can bet you my house that you didn't say that. Not truthfully, to be exact," Hawke said firmly. She couldn't grasp it, couldn't believe in it, couldn't rouse her dulled heart to triumph in what his voice had told her in rupturing calmness to be true.

"Then behold, I am the proud new owner of the famous Amell Estate. I will want my keys once we get back to Kirkwall, especially the ones for the hidden cellar up to Darktown, to be more exact," he said mockingly.

"Will you at least keep my Mother in there? She makes excellent pie," Hawke said childishly.

Fenris laughed. "I would never kick that woman out. She does make excellent pie." He kept his smirk and forgot what they were fighting about not a minute ago. "You on the other hand…"

"No worries. I'll take over your mansion and finally give it a proper make over now that you'll be too busy raiding my cellar for cheaper wine," Hawke said in annoyance. "Oh, I can't wait."

"At least that's something to hope for," Fenris said calmly, then turned his head to the iron bars. "Are you feeling better?"

"Now that I get my wish to restore your wreck of a house, yep. Pretty dandy," Hawke said childishly.

"I meant your health, not your morale," Fenris pressed in annoyance. "And don't lie to me."

"I'm in pain and I'm feverish. Just another Tuesday, really," Hawke replied confidently.

"Can you stand up?"

She sighed and thought it was worth a shot. What more could she lose? A leg? Improbable. "Gimme a sec." She got a hold of the bars and focused her weight on her right leg; after a while of grunting and grumbling in frustration, she finally rose straight up. "Lieutenant Hawke reporting for duty. It appears I am fit to stand… and remain a statue in the process."

"Hawke," she heard him say in annoyance.

She looked to her right to see that Fenris had his hand out in-between the bars and reaching for her own. More than that she couldn't see. She contained her smile and stuck out her own hand to let him catch it; he held it firmly without uttering another word. They weren't necessary, he would say. And what a wonder it was that all they had done and allowed each other up until then should seem but a thing they truly shared, a common and inevitable catastrophe, but all in good intentions and a sort of honest understanding, now magnified by the lament of what seemed as the end of them. Letting the moments just pass away, she entrusted her hand to him and felt the refreshing coldness of his hand against her feverish one, tangled up into one another as strongly as they could.

 


	34. Guardians For The Greater Good

His hand was not only colder, but it was  _stronger._ No, not in the physical sense, although that was also true. As sturdy and robust as her trained hand was, it was still had the petite womanly, more fragile form in his much larger, muscular one. But this was not about strength, as much as it was about … some kind of curious magnification. It was vehement and motioning, though she did nothing. "Fenris," she said in amazement, inhaling quickly as her eyes widened. She felt it and she saw his markings glowing blue. The searing energy; it had a will of its own and she was absorbing it. "Are you doing this?"

"No, but I can feel it," Fenris said with distress in his tone. "What is it?"

"I think," she paused and let the energy flow rapidly in her veins. "I think your markings are giving me strength."

Fenris frowned in confusion. "But I'm not a mage; I can't heal you."

"You're not healing, you're…" she frowned and examined the feeling, "…giving me your energy. The lyrium gives you the power and you don't need to be a mage; I need to be one," she said with her tone heightening by the second, almost about to smile, "But we're both doing this."

He shook his head hesitantly. "I don't understand. I'm  _giving_  you the lyrium?"

"No, it is already burned in your skin, it can't be taken out." She arched her eyebrow and continued, "The matter is what  _it is doing._ It amplifies my magic."

He remembered how she explained to him in the Deep Roads that the markings did half the job in healing him, because she was deeply inexperienced and there was no way she could have directed the spell with such precision. "So it works both ways?" Fenris asked in amazement. "I can enhance your regeneration?"

"If you're good-intentioned; if you allow it. Yes, I think you can," Hawke said quickly and started to smile with all her teeth. "This is amazing. I feel it everywhere."

"Good," Fenris said sharply. "You will save a lot of coin on potions then."

"No!" she shouted quickly. "This is a nice trick, but it's not without consequence. Don't you feel a little light-headed?"

"I… don't know. I was already weak."

She sought to take her hand away in an instant, but he caught it insistently and wouldn't let go. "Take it, Hawke. It matters little now if it gives me a bit of haze."

"…Fine," she muttered in annoyance. She let the pressure in her heart go and focused on the energy from his withered calloused palm, though much focus wasn't necessary. It was as if the energy had a mind of its own, offering permissions with no speck of conscious thought. "You really are a double-edged sword."

She heard Fenris chuckle from the other side, "Will wonders-"

"Never cease," Hawke finished joyfully. A little joke came back to her. "An iron fist quietly sits inside the velvet glove."

"Isn't it the other way around?" She didn't answer. "Hawke?... Hawke!"

She was pressing her eyes tightly shut and groaned, "Let go."

"Why?" Fenris asked urgently. His hand was numb. He couldn't bring motion to it. "I can't."

"Fenris, let go," she repeated commandingly. "Damn it," she shouted and tried to get out of his firm grip. His fingers twitched and loosened their hold, letting her get the hand out.

"What was that?" he asked in alarm. "I went numb."

"You were already weak, like you said," Hawke said in-between panting. "Better not move up the career ladder to royally dead."

"Yes, I am quite content with being royal only if it is followed by," he said and paused to clear his throat, "pain in the ass". After a moment of silence, he sought to press, "How do you feel now?"

"Who cares? You're the one in trouble now. How is your head?" she asked in worry.

"I'm perfectly fine," Fenris almost lied. "What n-"

A large boom came about from her cell, shaking up the ground, making Fenris fall and blasting dust everywhere as a roaring wave refracted through everything. What followed was an awkward silence, before hearing Hawke's grumpy childish voice eventually going, "…Crap."

"You do realize if these bars hadn't been magically sealed I would have gotten us out by now," Fenris said grumpily as he rose from the ground.

"It didn't hurt to try," Hawke shouted back. "Well… so I made a hole in the ground. It's not like I…  _oh_."

"Oh," Fenris repeated ironically.

"I'm sure no one heard us," Hawke said optimistically. "They're probably too busy trying to brainwash Armand."

"And somehow I find myself actually seeing that as something to hope for," Fenris said waspishly. He shook his head and sighed. "Please don't do that again." But the ground shook again with a boom and he fell to the ground again. "Venhedis. Are you trying to get us killed?" No answer. Of course she had to play childish now, as if that would lift up his spirits.

Why? Just why? With all the irrevocably  _crazy_ that had been surrounding them for years, it wasn't at all inconceivable now that his markings made her go insane. Perhaps that prayer was necessary. Perhaps he hadn't prayed enough. Just when he managed to get up, the floor collapsed beneath him in an almost precise circle. He held on to the edge as he remained suspended in the air. As he looked down, Hawke was standing with a wide and cocky smile in an empty spacious place below. "You were saying?"

"Kaffas," he cursed angrily.

"You can let go anytime now," she said in amusement.

He growled in annoyance and let himself fall. As he prepared to land on his feet, she caught him in her arms and gave him an arrogant smirk. "Abracadabra," she said mockingly and dropped him nonchalantly like a corpse.

Good thinking, taking revenge for her own amusement at such a time. He eyed her murderously as he rose from the ground. "You couldn't wait to get a chance to do that."

"Nope," Hawke said childishly.

"You realize you are like a child, I hope," Fenris growled disapprovingly.

She chuckled as she grazed the dust off her coat, "Well good thing I have daddy here to scold me."

"Don't tell me you're going crazy and seeing the ghost of your father in me again," Fenris said angrily.

"If I did, I wouldn't call you daddy," Hawke said in amusement.

"Reckless  _and_ disturbed. What a charming mind you have," Fenris said grumpily and started to walk. "Keep me out of it."

She turned around chuckling and walked forward, then arched her eyebrow with a grin. "If only he'd spank me, too."

"This is not the time," Fenris said sharply.

As he caught up with her, she gave him a cocky smirk. "So you're saying there'll be a time?" Hawke laughed. "Is that a promise?"

He drew up a faint ghost of a smile through his hair. "If you get us out of here alive, make no mistake that I will personally ensure you are disciplined correctly."

"I should start saving up on compresses, then," Hawke said in amusement, then frowned. "And look who's not playing Mr. Innocent doesn't-get-dirty-talk anymore."

He didn't answer, but she could see a small contained grin on his face before being enveloped by the darkness of the corridor they entered. She stopped suddenly and whispered, "Wait. This is reckless."

" _Now_ you realize?" Fenris whispered back grumpily.

"Do I need to remind you how you ended up in here?" Hawke whispered angrily. He remained silent as he admitted defeat. "Didn't think so."

"I don't recognize this part of the catacombs," Fenris said quietly.

"Well we can't sit here and wait to get ambushed again." She put a hand over her forehead. "Ah, think, think, think."

Fenris contained his laugh. "Is your brain defying your wishes, little Hawke?"

"Stop that," she hissed angrily.

"Stop what?" he asked in confusion.

"The ever so subtle dirty jokes," she said. "I need to concentrate."

He crossed his arms in amusement. "I'm sorry, am I suddenly to understand that you can't think clearly in my presence?"

"No!" Hawke said assertively and sighed. "Now I wish I'd brought that Magical Ball of Fortune with me and gag you with it."

He snorted and remained unimpressed, saying in a sarcastic grumpy tone, "Oh, talk dirty to me."

"Oh, you want dirty talk? I'll give you dirty talk, just you wait," she threatened angrily.

Fenris tried to contain his laugh again. "Let us focus on one thing at a time. Getting out of here would be a reasonable main priority, I suspect."

"Exactly my point a minute ago, genius," Hawke said meanly. "Ah, if only …" Then it hit her, remembering her fall in front of the blood mage and the childish father references now.

"If only?"

Hawke sighed and smiled crookedly. "Can you be a dear and turn into an elven torch light for a few seconds?"

She heard him sigh grumpily in the dark before glowing blue. "Thank you ever so much," she said childishly and brought up her hands together.

"Is there a point to this?" Fenris asked calmly.

"More like a speck in space," Hawke said joyfully and closed her eyes to concentrate. A little bulb of light started to form spherically around the contour of her hands. It immediately started to fly around them as if it had a mind of its own. As it came near him, Fenris ducked down and growled angrily. The shimmering little orb hovered over and its magical hum tickled the hairs on the back of his neck. "Relax, Fenris. It won't bite."

He came back up and sighed as he turned off his glow. "I hope it has a function though."

"It does. It's going to find our friends," Hawke said confidently.

"What in blazes is it?" Fenris whispered angrily.

"Uh, it's a wisp?" she whispered back. "Haven't you seen one before?"

"Yes, all the time. Magisters just go head over heels for little summoned flying snowflakes, you know, when they're too tired summoning demons," Fenris said grumpily.

"You're right," Hawke said joyfully. "It does look like a little snowflake. I'll call it Fenris."

"Great," Fenris pretended sarcastically. "And when we get back home, remind me to name the three ugly mushrooms growing on my floor Hildegaard, Bianca and Hawke."

She snorted. "Joke's on you, Fenris, for having bad taste," Hawke stung back calmly.

She returned to concentrating on the tiny wisp with barely any consciousness to call its own. It was humming playfully in front of her, so she raised her palm to catch its attention. "I need you to be quiet," she whispered suavely. "You can do that, can't you?"

"And now she's talking to flying light balls," Fenris said in an ironic tone.

"Maybe I should have let you rot in that cage, hm?" Hawke said meanly. He rolled his eyes and decided to leave her do what she was doing. A tiny part of him still had her under a wild suspicion that she was not in her right mind because of her withdrawal. He killed that thought in his mind, because some things he did not want to remember. The horror she put him through in the Deep Roads, he did not need to see again.

The wisp dimmed and started spinning joyfully throughout the corridor. After a few moments, they could barely see it anymore. He pressed, "How exactly is it going to find them?"

"It's a summoned speck of a spirit," Hawke said and before he could frown and start with his magic paranoia, she added, "A good spirit. It will only find whoever is good to me. If it senses anything else it will simply fly back at me and let me know and if it encounters hostility, it explodes and deals damage. So it's a win-win."

"It seems your friend is getting distracted," Fenris said calmly, as they moved through the corridor and the wisp started tethering to every possible object and wall.

"It takes a bit until it gets used to this world," Hawke explained. "Good spirits, even the tiny speck of one; they do not have interest in crossing the Veil and they don't wish to linger whence they understand they have crossed it. They will return immediately, unless a mage asks them with the purest heart that they need their help."

"Oh? I imagine Anders must have had the  _purest_ heart when he asked that spirit of justice to help," Fenris said sarcastically as they walked side by side in the dark.

"That's different. Justice didn't cross the Veil by choice; he was cast out. If such a thing happens, the spirit can't cross back and it inevitably inhabits whatever corpse they encounter."

He had forgotten that part. "And he thought it was a good idea to do the spirit a favour and merge with him."

"That was  _not_ a good idea. I still stand by that," Hawke said calmly. "I'm not an expert at this, though. Father never mentioned anything about beings merging with spirits. Which only proves it is unnatural, I suspect."

"You suspect?" Fenris asked ironically.

"Well, it's still a  _good_ spirit," Hawke sighed. "But nevertheless, you're probably right. I mean, as far as I know, spirits are only good and useful if they are summoned. They retain their mind and will and help the mage with healing or protection, but not much else. That's kind of why I've never even heard of spirits of justice in the physical world. The only ones you hear of are of compassion or fortitude. They're living, objective virtues that have only one way of doing things: help, protect, heal. Justice… well, justice is more complicated than that. It depends on the one who wishes it upon the world. It… can be subjective."

"It turns into vengeance," Fenris said sharply, more to himself.

"Pretty much," Hawke said bitterly. "But enough. It's dangerous to make sounds in here."

"I agree," Fenris said calmly. Maybe she wasn't going crazy. She seemed in her right mind and reasonable enough in her explanations.

She whispered sometimes to the tiny spirit to come back if it sensed magic or saw a one-eyed raven statue and they would soon turn around and go through another passage that wasn't harbouring any magical wards. For a time, it seemed as though they had been passing through the same corridor over and over again. Hawke kept vigilant and focused, but hear and then she would look at Fenris in the dimness and see his face twitching and containing what she could only suspect were groans of discomfort. She didn't want to make him feel mothered, not unless he really was having trouble and his health was decreasing, but how could one even begin to guess what he felt? He understood and swallowed pain better than anybody. Sometimes she'd mistake his subtle flinches of pain for giving her the saucy eyebrow and then she would feel stupid. The only times she could be certain he was being in serious pain is when he was actually bleeding. She contained these thoughts, soon about to break and blast at him.

But it wasn't necessary, as it turned out. He finally stopped, his face appearing feverish and gasping for air. There he stood, his forehead pressed to the bars on the wall, both hands clutching at the iron. She saw his face wrinkled deeply in his wary scowl, the painful flutter of his gaze, a thin layer of sweat clinging to his cheek.

"You're not alright," Hawke said in a sharp, disapproving tone.

He shook his head. He tried to speak but he couldn't. He tried to gesture but he couldn't. His heart thundered in his chest. He glanced back at her and the small far-flung light of the wisp coming back from a distance to get beside her, but getting distracted and whirling around the walls. She heard his heart galloping and the shock, his fear, and it was fear for her, not for him. Fear that some awful fate could befall them because he was losing the state to function.

"Fenris, come here," Hawke pressed calmly. But he wouldn't. He clung to the bars stubbornly, right arm hooked around and left hand clasping it as if he wouldn't be moved. She told him back there, she told him it was going to weaken him, but he wouldn't listen. "Damn it, Fenris."

She issued the wisp to come back as fast as it could and once it arrived, luminously twirling and floating around her, she looked at it and said in a warm voice, "I need you do one other thing for me. Would you help me with another thing?" The wisp spun around and hummed excitedly, its small ethereal threads on the edges swaying in the air and glowing with an incandescent white. "Alright. Come with me," she said calmly as the wisp came into her palm. She approached Fenris, who was trying with his whole being to contain every bit of gasp and pant that were attempting to get out.

The light from the little spirit shimmered in her big, childlike eyes and he could see they were filled with concern and a bit of anger towards him. He hung on the bars, his eyes drawing a sorrowful look as if he was apologizing for being a burden. She knew this and she rolled her eyes, quite fittingly. Another second and he would have burst, but she caught him by the shoulder and told him, "I need you to keep it together and trust me. Can you do that for me?"

What a sublime, delightful tone she had, even amidst this wreckage and havoc. For a moment, he didn't even think she was talking to him, but instead to the wisp, because she spoke so gently that she seemed like a flower in bloom. He swallowed heavily in his throat and clenched his teeth before he gave her a silent nod.

"Still your heart," Hawke said quietly. He looked down at her, his chest heaving as though he were out of breath. "I'll take care of you."

In the following moment, as the wisp floated up from her palm, little soft threads of light on its edges started to tether to his body and to her hand, almost seeming semi-liquid or gooey as they touched him. It sent flows of incredibly mellow, gentle energy in his veins. A good, forbearing spirit it was. There was no malice or cruel intent in it, not even desire. It felt as if only the merest fraction of its being was crossing into his body, like the twinkling of a divine eye. The strength of the wisp solaced his skin and travelled in his insides without so much as a speck of pain or a twitch from him. It was a sentient manifestation of the charge that bound particles together, a cooperative and compassionate force and the perfect expression of the mysteries of the universe. Only not to forget, it was not doing it alone. It was helping the mage beside him and this compassionate force was coming just as much from the spirit as it was from her.

Once it was done, the tether broke and tiny sparkles went shimmering around them and landing on his face. They felt like faint drops of water, perhaps they really were. The wisp twinkled again happily and Hawke laughed and whispered to it, "Thank you. Now can you stay quiet again? We'll soon be on our way."

Fenris remained a bit dazed in his head - but not from the pain. No, the pain was gone. The fever was gone. The curious haze was rooted into this sudden sensation of Hawke's healing touch through the wisp; it was light, he felt like a feather or just some point in the air, floating and looking at the world as if he was out of it and wanted to come back. As if one suddenly felt the urge to speak to flowers, pick them up in handfuls or talk urgently with the stars. The night would never desert him and remained faithful under Hawke's protective presence. He felt as if he was on the roof of his mansion with her again, when he had the sudden realization that he wasn't going to die; that loneliness and neglect were simply insufficient, and he could always either preserve his immunity to them or change for the better if only he breathed on.

"Thank you, Hawke," he finally whispered hoarsely.

"Don't thank me, thank this little guy," she said joyfully with the wisp flickering around her head. "It likes you." He hated himself for suddenly having such a good time in a miserable moment like this, thinking of dancing with her through the corridors. He pretended to brush his hair away from his forehead, in reality slapping himself to reality. He would have to hit himself over the face more often.

Once his proud calm came back, he answered, "It does, doesn't it?" he said softly with a faint, vaguely warm expression. "Thank you, Ser Wisp." The spirit spun around excitedly again, this time around him, tickling the back of his neck again and soothing his hair as it twirled and hummed in what one could only name as pure joy.

"Guardian wisp," Hawke corrected him quietly. "I think that would be an appropriate role."

"Indeed," Fenris said flatly, his eyes rotating as they followed the dance of the wisp that started bobbing and floating around the walls again. It didn't seem far-fetched to assume, that in a way, her fate and role were rather similar to the newly appointed one belonging to the wisp. If they would ever discuss the depths of the Qun again, he would have to remember to tell her this realization.

* * *

After a while, they stopped once they saw the remnants of some light coming from a torch. An opening was near and the wisp went through it excitedly. Fenris could see that this tensed Hawke, which was not a good sign. But as they remained calm and quiet for a minute, the wisp finally came back bobbing and swirling happily into her palm. He saw the subtle lines of her expression shift and her eyes widen and set blankly into the distance. "Hawke?" he whispered in worry.

She didn't answer, seeming as if she were in a paralyzed trance. He put a hand over her shoulder, then her face finally twitched and she drew away. "Sorry. I always lose myself and get the shivers when it sends me images of what it saw."

"That's what it did?" Fenris asked in amazement. "How?"

"That, I don't know how to answer," Hawke whispered calmly. "It's just one of those things."

That were bound to remain a mystery. He thought of the painting in his mansion, the one with the beautiful lively scenery above and the lake of fire and lost souls below. He would remember to always hold alive in his soul the definition of good. He would also remember just how remarkably titanic the difference was between things like this spirit, the little wisp or this strong and kind-hearted mage beside him; and the blasphemous and bestial creatures the magisters here and the demons beyond were.

Truly colossal difference.

Beyond all cosmic proportions.

"I need you to do what more thing for me, and then you're free to go back," Hawke whispered in warm tone to the guardian wisp. "Distract the assassins. We'll come from behind, no worries."

The luminous spirit complied and shot off in the direction from whence it came, followed quietly by the two warriors. Once it entered the new room, they heard a drab Antivan-sounding language being articulated in the form of curses followed by spits. Fenris rushed swiftly in the darkness of a corner and assaulted the first guard he saw. With his markings glowing again, he hit a soft point and put the elf to sleep. He would not kill unless it was in defence. They stripped him of all his hidden weapons. Not much. Two black stilettos, an Antivan pocket knife and a cross-guarded longsword. Fenris picked up the longsword and gave it to Hawke an instant. He could do fine without one, having the markings up his sleeve, whereas she needed all the defence she could get. They didn't say a word to each other, their strategy well known between each other by now, and moved forward past the empty cells. The wisp flickered in the distance and rushed back to Hawke to send her images of the next room.

"I see someone," she whispered the in the faintest possible voice.

His eyes flinched and widened, preparing for whatever plan they had and completely forgetting why he became tense. "And?"

"He's beaten up and chained to the wall. Nothing else. There was a figure, but it left. Either that or it's a statue. The wisp can see, but not perceive and give meaning to things that are completely alien to it," she explained, then drew her sword out. "Let's go."

The wisp went in first and tethered itself to the chained figure in the dense darkness far from the beaten path. Good sign? It was too dark to see and the light of the wisp became much too weak, so Fenris decided to turn on his markings. Zevran. He was excruciatingly bruised all over his body, bare-chested and full of sharp cuts. He also had a deep cut over the two-lined tattoo on his face and another one over his neck, as if someone threatened him with death and offered him a quick demonstration.

"Zevran, can you hear me?" Hawke whispered in alarm as she tethered herself to the wisp to give it more light and energy to give to him. "Oi!"

It was a horrifying sight, even if he had seen this time a dozen in his life as a slave. Zevran's head hung low and swollen, half of it flowing with blood dropping to the ground and the once strong, but childlike expression, his aura of innocence, they were stained with the gore of evil. It became a cruel reminder of powerful men inflicting pain on others just for their amusement. Just to see how much they can crush something smaller than them without actually killing it; leaving it to whimper, suffer and rot in its helplessness. He would not remember. More so, that he was beginning to imagine – what if Hawke had pissed these people off with all her might, that he would come to find her here instead of this elf; stripped, bloody, scarred and beaten, almost lifeless and far beyond a chance to survive, since she was the only one who had the power to heal. Her eyes stripped of their radiance and the rich lines of her expression numbed out and cancelled, painting only a ghost of what she once had been. He would not imagine. This was not the time to go mad.

He knew he would go mad.

Vividly, the threads of the spherical guardian spirit glued to Zevran's bloody neck; at once it begun palpitating and his face shifted, but only in subtle, faint lines of movement, his eyes still closed and his breathing less than scarce. "Zevran, open your eyes. Do you hear me?" Hawke said in a quiet, soothing tone. "You're not dying on me now, you bloody idiot. Come back to me."

Zevran's pale lips flinched and his teeth gritted before he let out a ghost of a gasp. Then he said in the most warm tone they had ever heard, "Cara mia." Fenris went straight for the chains and punched them loose, as Hawke kept the tether alive and tried as much as she could to sustain the spell, although she was becoming weak. Zevran started to twitch his lips again and his eyebrows joined in a scowl, as he titled his head and lifted an arm with such difficulty one would think he was held back by invisible massive plates. He immediately coughed up blood and held on to Hawke's shoulder, then his palm came to her cheek. "Thank you, cara," he said in a hoarse voice, with his eyes half-open. "Let us go home."

He was seeing his wife. There was no time to correct him or snap at him to wake up in full vigilance. Patience. Patience was key. She let him hold on to her, with Fenris holding him by the arm from on his other side. This was not an ideal way of handling things. The wisp was too busy, Hawke was too busy. He had to watch out for surprises, so he kept his eyes forward.

"Forgive me, cara," Zevran said again in his hazed state, then he coughed brutally. "I should have listened to you."

"You're alright," Hawke replied firmly. She was beginning to lose her vision, but she wouldn't stop now. She let the wisp continue its work and didn't even begin to let herself think to ask Fenris to do their new private trick again. "Come on, Zev, open your eyes." She might as well play along with his dazed impression. "For me?"

"Anything for you," Zevran replied with the most determined voice, despite the painful huskiness that accompanied the tone. He eventually managed to open his eyes and stand on his own two feet without falling. When Hawke broke the tether and let the wisp float around bump into walls again as if it needed a break to replenish its energy by hitting itself (or perhaps it simply wanted to go back to the Fade – yes that was more likely), it appeared as though Zevran finally came to his senses. Breathing heavily, he widened his eyes with a terrified lift to his eyebrows. "Cara, where did you go?"

"She had to leave. I'm her taller clownish replacement," Hawke said in amusement.

"Braska," he cursed like a child, in-between panting.

"Where are the others?" Hawke pressed. "Oh and look where our swords went," she said and pointed at the sword-stand near the torture rack.

"Oh, give me a moment," Zevran said in pain. "Shit.  _This_ is what dicks in vinegar feel like."

"I… could have lived without knowing that," Hawke said while chuckling. "Where are the others?"

"Ah, we got ambushed. It overwhelmed us," Zevran said in pain.

Hawke's breathing could not get more haunted. "Us?" Her tone could not be more contained. She clenched her teeth. She couldn't wait. Not for this elf to bounce back to reality, not for anything.

"I let your dwarven friend escape. As for Amadeo, I truly do not know," Zevran stated quietly.

"You  _let_ my friend escape?" Hawke asked in amazement. "Heh," she let out the air out of her voice in relief. "You truly are a professional good-doer." This was good. Varric was a mastermind in remaining invisible. He would be well. He had to be.

"I told you I am no liar," Zevran said confidently. He swayed a bit and let the bones in his spine crack as he stretched. "You know I had the weirdest dream?"

Hawke got out a compress from her hidden pockets and rapidly grazed all his cuts. "What was the dream about?"

He coughed and swayed a bit, almost tripping on his own feet. "I was falling down a flight of stairs and ended in a pit full of beautiful, radiant virgins. A macabre voice came about my ears, it was the Devil. He told me I had to deflower all of them to get out and if I didn't comply, they would all turn into hideous snakes and devour me for days and leaving me to die in agony."

"Here we go again," Fenris said grumpily with his head still turned to the door that separated them from hypothetical disaster.

"Exactly so. Here we go again," Zevran said in a serious voice. "Can you imagine? Having to go through all that nasty trouble again and again and again? Ay, caramba!" he almost shouted childishly and shook his head.

"I  _think_ he's fine now," Fenris said sharply. "Let us leave."

"And then mi cara showed herself to me. She took me away from that filth and raised me to the heavens," Zevran said softly as he breathed in and out. "Oh, and it was you, in fact. Ah, perhaps she sent you to me," he said deliriously, then finally shook his head rapidly and came back to his senses. He looked at Hawke and nodded knightly, "Forgive me, my dear. I was not in my right mind."

"No offence taken," Hawke said in amusement. "I never heard anyone speaking so warmly to a ghost before."

"What? Is it  _that_  inconceivable that I am capable of love?" Zevran asked in a bit of make-believe outrage as he sat down on a box.

"No, of course not," Hawke said sharply, circling her foot around the ground. "You can have plenty of love," she said with a smile, then arched an eyebrow. "Curable by marriage."

"Oh, what a cynic you are," Zevran sneered. "I grew up amongst whores and fucked half of Antiva and even then I was still not as doubtful as you."

"What? I just made a joke, lighten up," Hawke said with a raised eyebrow, not realizing Fenris was listening in carefully.

"My dear, half of any joke is just the bare truth," Zevran said as he tried to come back to all his senses. He put a hand over his forehead and tried to breathe. "And one does not need to be a genius or a clairvoyant to see do not see butterflies, rainbows and unicorns in your future."

"Yes, exactly so," Hawke snorted. "Idealism is not my strong key."

"Ah, but it needn't be," Zevran said calmly. "One simply needs to bump heads with reality before it hits them square in the jaw. Ah, but all these thoughts are moot. You will see when the time comes."

"Are you done yet?" Hawke asked with vivid annoyance in her tone. "Can you stand up?"

"Patience," Zevran said with a scowl. "Also, now I really do feel bad for your friend over there."

"I'm sensing another earth-shattering lesson coming about," Fenris finally joined in annoyance.

"Well, she makes you bark up her leg, taunting you with a bone you can't have. That much is clear, my friend," Zevran said calmly.

"I am not  _barking_ on anyone's leg," Fenris said in a sharp, controlled tone. "And you would do well to keep to your business."

"Ah, fine," Zevran yielded nonchalantly. "You two are a pain in my head anyway. Quite frankly, you deserve each other." He paused awkwardly as if he just realized he was insulting her. "I did not mean literally. I am grateful that you rescued and healed me, my friend. Forgive my impertinence."

"That's what I wanted to hear," Hawke said sarcastically. "Any time you're ready," she said impatiently.

Zevran tried to stand up, tumbling a bit in his walk towards them. "I did not mean to offend, my friends. But quite frankly, you would do well to look at me as proof it  _does_ get better if you stop fidgeting so much and brooding on your eggs of despair."

"Keep walking," Hawke interrupted his speech sharply. She sighed and called upon the wisp again. "Just a little bit more, my friend. I need you to find the others. If you don't want to, you can go back."

"See! That's it, right there!" Zevran almost shouted childishly.

"What is?" Hawke asked in confusion.

"That's how you make a marriage work!" he said eagerly and gestured while explaining, "You give the other the freedom to choose what they do next. You assure them of the safety that whichever decision they make is  _never_  the wrong one."

"We are in a prison," Fenris said sharply. "We are still missing two people, who are probably dead for all we know," he continued disapprovingly, "And somehow we're stuck with a former perverted assassin who is giving us soul teachings about eternal love and successful marriages." He looked up at the ceiling and sighed heavily. "If this is not a dream, mark my words; I will never ever doubt that the Maker exists anymore. No amount of hazardous particles floating about at random could ever gather up the strength to have such a poor sense of humour."

"Fenris… I can't even begin to express in words how right you are at this point," Hawke agreed grumpily.

"Good, let him be right once in a while. That also works wonders," Zevran said charmingly.

"Shut it, Romeo," Hawke hissed angrily, as they followed the wisp through the new dark passage.

Zevran grinned as he followed then and pointed at Hawke. "See, that… that you do not want to do, my dear." He paused to enjoy the murderous look she began to give him as they walked. "Not unless you're shouting orders either in battle or in the bedroom," he continued with his tips, amusing himself to bits at their annoyance.

"You're such a pie," Hawke said mockingly.

"Yes, I am a fountain of eternal clarity and wisdom," Zevran mused joyfully. "You would do well to listen to me, my dear."

"I'm too busy trying to save our sodding arses," Hawke said angrily, trying not to let the wisp craze and get distracted. She stopped and called upon it again in her thoughts so it would give her vision of the next room.

"Ah, exactly so. You are so much like my cara," Zevran said playfully. "Always too busy rescuing others, no one there to rescue her. Until I came along, of course."

"Oh yes, when you came to  _kill_ her," Fenris stung sharply.

"And look how it all turned out!" Zevran said joyfully while raising his hands in the air. "I am free, well,  _almost_ free – considering the prison – and I am a happy man. If the fortune teller in the whorehouse I grew up in had told me that such marvellous turn of events would be in store for me, I would have spat and laughed in her face."

"Not everyone is as lucky as you," Hawke said calmly. "But I get your point. You make the most of where you are, and it might surprise you how much you have just under your nose."

"She speaks words of wisdom, but does not see it for herself," Zevran said in amusement. "Ah, you are a fine one, Hawke."

" _I'm a mage_ , as you have may have recently noticed," Hawke said with discomfort in her tone. "Like I said, not everyone can be as luck as you."

"Psht! As if that makes any difference," Zevran mused confidently. "You live, breathe and have a heart that beats just the same as me and big bad Fenris next to me." She had to admit, it was rather fascinating how little this elf cared for differences of any kind, let alone the fact that he was speaking freely to a human and condoning relationships between her race and his as if it was no titanic matter whatsoever.

"Oh, tell  _him_ there's happiness in store for him. Just test that and see what happens," Hawke grinned confidently.

"He's a man, my dear. It's fairly easy to make a man happy. They don't need to sit down and think on it or even realize that it's happening," Zevran said confidently.

" _Really_? Never would have guessed that," Hawke asked mockingly.

Zevran laughed quietly. "Men are very simple. And because they are so simple, the woman was created to, well, how to put it…"

"Complicate everything?" Fenris finally joined again.

"Na, that is a bit harsh," Zevran said calmly. "Let's say women exist to make up for the blind spots of men, for some fairly simple concepts are curiously hard for us to grasp. Like a glowing wisp to guide us in the dark," he said and pointed at the spirit in the distance. "And there are so many blind spots, am I right, my friend?" he asked and elbowed Fenris.

"I stopped paying attention after  _na,_ " Fenris said in a serious tone.

"I stopped paying attention for a good half hour," Hawke sneered and walked faster.

"Ah, you are no fun," Zevran grinned joyfully as he followed from behind, looking at the two and shaking his head in delight at their deflections.

* * *

After what seemed like an hour of roaming suspiciously _empty_  hallways, the wisp finally gave Hawke vision of some movement about. She would have been content to encounter a full nest of blood mage only if it would mean she could return to her charming dwarven friend who never bothered to keep her teachings on matters of the heart. Fenris also was growing fairly annoyed and wished that Armand would be alive to call him  _little bitch_ again. His harsh advice and name calling was much,  _much_ more tolerable than Zevran's eternal speeches of wisdom, however sane and reasonable they might have sounded.

"I think it's them," Hawke whispered as they hid in a corner. She tried with all her energy to concentrate on the little that the wisp understood from the images and picked up a strong image of Avicus. "It's that mage. Stay here."

"Come again, Hawke?" Fenris said sharply.

Hawke rolled her eyes. "I'll go in alone. You wait and come from behind if anything bad happens."

"Say that again and I'll personally cut you," Fenris whispered angrily.

"She is right," Zevran intervened. "That mage had a fascination with her. It might benefit us to use her as bait. We could have time to go around and look for Amadeo."

"I-  _We_ are not using her as bait." His tone was angry. Hearing his distressed, controlled tone, the whole manner in which Fenris spoke, she couldn't help but draw a smile. Good thing it was dark, for she felt her cheeks suddenly burn. No time for this. Concentrate.

"I'll be fine," she said confidently. "Have a little trust, will you?"

She turned her head to look at the twirling and impatient wisp and called it back in her hand. "Thanks a bunch, friend. Couldn't have done it without you," she said knightly. "Off you go," she saluted it warmly and in a second, the air rippled in waves around the spirit and swallowed it back into the Fade with a joyful hum, as if it had said goodbye to them.

Hawke sighed and nodded at them, then turned her back and walked forward into the room. Fenris watched her open the heavy door, making a roaring clank which echoed in his thundering heart as she disappeared.

* * *

It was a grand room, full of benches and raven statues, stunning arches and all in all, an eerie but beautiful architecture. This was an altar of sorts, and a figure was sitting on a chair up front.

Avicus, the mage. He sat down, boylike, casual, with one knee crooked, his face parchment white, hair a long in a tangled mess of dark curls. He looked up at her with predictable fascination as she approached.

In a way, he made her think of a child doll, with brilliant faintly grey-blue glass eyes—a doll that had been found in an attic and sought to possess the innocent passer-by. A vagabond child of the Void, put on this earth solely to  _piss her off._

"Somehow I could not expect less of you," Avicus said, his grin stretching out with deeply annoying delight all over his expression.

"Yeah, I have a great sense of making an entrance," Hawke said sarcastically, controlling her anger.

"You look good to me, you damnable little devil," Avicus said while showing his sharp teeth. He inhaled with a smile, "Good to embrace and good to love."

They eyed each other for a moment. And then he surprised her, rising and coming towards her just as she moved in defence. He stopped right in front of her and suddenly caressed the length of her shoulder. His gesture wasn't tentative, but it was extremely gentle. She could have backed away. She didn't.

"Are you done?" Hawke asked demandingly. "My nap time is due and I really want my friend back before sunrise."

"Friend, she says, as if it were nothing," Avicus said softly with a grin, starting to stroke her hair. She didn't flinch.

"You will tell me where he is. And don't try your nasty trick again, because it won't work," Hawke said confidently and smirked. "I just learned a new trick."

"Oh, forgive me for that. You gave me no choice," Avicus said softly, calmly. "I truly do not intend to hurt you."

"No, you just intend to capture me and put me to good use," Hawke said unperturbed. She didn't fear him. He knew that and it annoyed him just as much as it fascinated him. She had to keep it together.

"What I intend is exactly what I have made clear to you from the beginning," Avicus said calmly. "I want to help you. I want to make you rise to the highest form of your potential. I want to give you my leadership here."

"I'm sure you're a very busy man, with much to get busy with," Hawke said and looked at the altar, which sent shivers down her spine thinking how many died on that table.

"Ah yes! I _am_  selfish!" Avicus said with delight. "It is indeed my own selfish desire to lessen my burdens. But as you can see, there are truly few of us left that could really live up to this role."

"We are both intelligent people here. You know I'm not interested in magic,  _any_ magic, and you can assume I am very _busy_  myself," she said and looked around, pointing out the obvious that the difference between them was colossal and she was here for the exact opposite reason he was.

"I see, I see," Avicus said. "But there's little point to continue being so busy in your current situation. I mean, I do not doubt that there are more of you hiding around here," he said and laughed softly, going in circles around her, "You do inspire loyalty wherever you go."

"Yeah, it's called being good," Hawke said sharply. "So what do you want?"

"I want you to be good. I want you to do good and far and wide," Avicus said with a broad grin. "If only you would allow me a moment of your time."

"Lesser rage demons have come up to me with better and more convincing offers," Hawke stung, remaining unimpressed as she crossed her arms.

"And that is exactly why I want you with me!" Avicus said joyfully. "You are hard to tear down, are you not? It is much too difficult for any demon to pounce on your desires, insufficiencies or vulnerabilities."

"Nah, I'm proud," Hawke lied nonchalantly.

Avicus laughed softly. "A careful choice of words is in order. You are much too proud to rule. But do you see yourself as struggling with inferiority, with inadequacy… insufficiency?"

"On the contrary," Hawke said and smirked. "I'm too much."

"Oh, you are delicious," Avicus laughed joyfully, stretching his arms out widely. "Tell me, child. How did you become so resistant? What made you so merciless and unyielding in the face of pure evil?" he almost hissed with desire and joy through his teeth.

"Who said I'm any of those things?" Hawke asked in amusement. "It's not as if you've summoned a demon to cast me into the Fade and test out that theory. Not that I'm giving you any ideas by that, but alas," she finished nonchalantly.

He laughed with such delight, it was clear he was both sane and insane. "See? You are not a fool. But you do not fear for your life. You talk to me, a representative of a people you – I have no doubt – have enormous scorn for. You even give the villain ideas for your own torture. How is that not fascinating? How is that not simply… ah, a rare, purely brave heart."

"It could also simply mean I'm a masochist," Hawke said with a shrug.

"I doubt it, although I do not discard that idea," Avicus said calmly. "But seeing as how you are skilled in both swords and magic, well… what a waste. Your life would be a waste, if you'd put yourself in danger just to be punished. You may be perceived as indispensible to your friends, am I wrong? Do you see it as a punishment?"

"Being punished with having friends," Hawke said and pretended to ponder on it. "Wooh, a paradox," she said mockingly.

"You help, you save, you do all it takes," Avicus said perceptively. "So if I am to guess, their safety is a blessing. Even now, they are safe, are they not? So it is not a punishment you desire, their deaths."

"Not if I can help it," Hawke said flatly. She knew this was too much. This would end badly. She trusted though, that somehow Fenris and Zevran would find a way to solve their little problem and find the others. Her? It didn't matter. She was distracting him perfectly, if they truly managed to get away.

"Ah, this is good," Avicus said to himself. "You are a good woman."

"Your eyesight is working  _fine_ today. I hope to never see you tomorrow, however. Now how would I accomplish that?" Hawke asked nonchalantly. "How can I make you happy, without you making  _me_ unhappy?"

"Tell me everything," Avicus said with hunger in his eyes. "Everything."

Tell him  _everything_? She would have to start with the colour of her smallclothes. That much was clear. "If I tell you, would you let my friend go?" Hawke asked mockingly. "If it's not too much to ask."

"Hmmmmm," he said childishly, caressing his chin in entertainment. "What say you, Amadeo?" he asked softly and looked to his left, where the strong posture of the red-headed elf came about from another room, looking almost positively taken with hunger. His eyes weren't his own anymore. His face was that of a stranger, not that she knew him very well. But it was changed.

_Damn it._ Shivers went up and down her spine, her blood froze in her veins and she was enveloped in the sudden urge to vomit. If this was all it took, she prayed for the miracle that Fenris, if ever faced with his master, would be different. But even so, Armand could have easily been pretending. Although, the look on his face, sharp and murderous, compliant and waiting for his master to give out the words – it was almost unbearable to watch and he could have had her fooled.

"Such mockery," Hawke said bravely. "How about you let him go. Or do I have to ask nicely, too?"

"Ah, you're making it hard for me," Avicus finally said with an innocent sigh. "I do not even know who I want more from the two of you."

"How about neither?" Hawke pressed aggressively. "Oh come on, old man. You have a cascade of slaves and assassins at your feet and I'm not here to rescue them all. Surely you don't miss him  _that_ much, since you seem to never have looked after him," she said and crossed her arms again with a perceptive grin. "You can't be this stupid, not to have found him by now."

Avicus looked at her with sudden discomfort in his controlled expression. Something sparked in his eye, something cruel. "How about this?" He beckoned for Armand to approach. "Since you seem to be so purely driven by doing what is good, how about you prove it right here and now."

She frowned and waited for him to continue, swallowing hard because she could not be more certain that this man would turn her virtues into weaknesses. "You fight to the death. If he defeats you, he is free to leave," he said and got out the vial necklace with Armand's blood out from beneath his robes. "Forever," he finished in an all serious tone and bowed to her. "This, I swear."


	35. A Matter Of Life And Death

I walk, I walk alone  
Into the promised land  
There's a better place for me  
But it's far, far away  
Everlasting life for me  
In a perfect world  
But I gotta die first  
Please God send me on my way

Time has a way of taking time  
Loneliness is not only felt by fools  
Alone I call to ease the pain  
Yearning to be held by you, alone, so alone, I'm lost  
Consumed by the pain

In My Darkest Hour

Nothing more could be gained from lingering near the Crows. I'd come. I'd fulfilled my purpose. I couldn't help him.

None of this made any sense, yet I did not wish for sense altogether. All I had known, my whole life since I'd escaped, was that I would do whatever it took to protect myself, as well as my friends. Who were these people, whom I called friends, as shocking and unnerving as it might have been?

Dorian. My sweet, silver-grinned Dorian, always strong and reassuring, yet a saint in all his modesty. He could always bring in me a smile even in my darkest hour. And hours like this, there had been plenty, though I had lost count by the time I had tasted what it truly meant to be free. I was grateful, so very grateful, that the Ferelden woman issued the Rivaini to remain at the inn and watch over him. He would not come to harm. And then there was Zevran. Cocky and musing, mumbling hot spice and cracking up the most scandalizing of jokes and scenarios with his abominable, depraved imagination.

But don't judge so quickly. Please, do not judge just yet. All this sum of strange or overwhelming attitudes you see, they are a battalion of defences and a carefully constructed aura to mask the great depth of our irreducible, individual soul. Without them, I would not be free. I did not wish to come back here; it was Zevran's wish. And in his hour of need, I could not refuse, even if I knew I'd hurt my beloved tenfold with my decision. Of course, he didn't say a word. Maybe just a ghost of a flinch that I'd seen with the back of my eye, across the subtle lines of his ever-warm expression. He understood I could not go back on my word to be at my friend's side and gave me the freedom to choose. And I had chosen, even if it meant the death of me. Only now, I could almost find in me a disturbing sensation that I wanted to weep. Not for my salvation, no.

Even if this scene that I am currently in had tormented by dreams and my nights over and over again for years – imagining what it would be like to be caught again, my happiness ruined, my being obstructed and enchained – I truly didn't see it coming. Not this way. Deliver us from evil, the prayer went. I didn't care at that moment for me, yet with all my being I wept inside for a miracle to save the soul in front of me, which had in all her bravery, came to rescue me, for no possibly fruitful reason other than perhaps, to be just. To do good. To sacrifice herself for the greater good. She is not a fool, she is not insane. I do not wish my freedom if it means killing her. It is a curious feeling, one many will never ever know – when you know you will not die, but you are overwhelm by the desire to. Such are the wolves of the forest, such are men who were trained to resist, to survive. They are broken people, and because they are broken, they know they will not die.

Such are the people who are not necessarily cruel, but had tasted cruelty dime a dozen. You look at a former slave and you will see nothing if not a perfect aura of content – either through a cocksure, joyful and carefree attitude as my friend exudes with such refined grace and talent, or by a cold, indomitable, hard face. That of a wolf, that of a tiger. It keeps all eyes away from prying and makes the blood freeze inside with striking reverberations of fear. It leaves an impression. It makes people understand we are not to be played with and we cannot be fooled. But of course, if you somehow manage to leave an impression on an escaped slave  _yourself_ , the repercussions of it will be quite fruitful, if not otherwise painful, depending on the slave. I would say my past decisions and behaviour concluded into a painful train of consequences for my friends, for my Dorian, but the end had enclosed my tale most fruitfully and joyfully. I think… I hope I did not hurt him quite so much, although I will never know for sure (better that I don't know). Because people like us, they can only be toned down, understood and tamed by truly strong people. We are a terrible challenge, a rare one to be accepted.

Yet this is the thing. In the manner of beasts, we set our tune for the world and treat it with the same coldness and prudence we had learned to root deep into end of every nerve and vein as we worked the field or carried enormous weights, when we were beaten because we were too weak to move on, when we were being kicked while we were down and unable to get up (but we would always get up), when we were tortured and healed, only to be whipped and smashed again until every speck of hope and warmth would be stripped from our conscience, our bones and our soul. But we would never show it affects us. We would never dare to leak any bit of emotion, terrible though it might be. We make it our personal burden, our desperation and our doubts remain private. The ones who didn't perished before their hearts stopped beating, before they ever died.

True death was born on the inside.

It feels so cold, so very cold. No grace dares to shine upon you. This is not a life, when you are obstructed of your own will. The only difficulty lies in the fact that if you are born this way, if you are stripped of your liberties from the very beginning, you would not know what freedom means. Your will is not your own and all your being has been constructed from the start to think only of what to on behalf of the Master; you are at his mercy and your role suffices with every "Yes, Master." You are absent of all convictions, impressions and curiosities as to how one may function if they are left to decide for their own. Most slaves do not survive if they become free. It is best if they remain where they are, for they are safer under their master's wings. Truly there is a higher chance to be put for safekeeping. But it is not a life. I would never return to that illusion, deep blasphemous illusion given by these unholy, dreaded excuses of creation.

One would not remember. Not when one was free. It is terrible to keep it together, terrible to remain and appear like a cold, hard beast, bad to the bone, never yielding, when inside you are no less than a lump of melting sugar if one great, brave soul had the courage to dwell deep enough. We are fearful, emotional, we feel and we breathe, and with every breath comes that fear.

Why am I disturbing this story? I will not do it much longer, so be patient. I promise I will end soon. I only wish you to listen a little more. Soon someone else will take over, as I finish dictating my own tale to the very end. My end is nigh, so do not worry.

So why have I chosen to mumble away this monologue of despair? It is because I am faced with my worst fear.

My flesh still crawls as I breathe this name, Avicus.

I will not bore you with the details of my life under the command of his man. It is unnecessary and time has a way of taking time, of which I don't have much, as you may see. I only say this – When I encountered him, I saw these men and knew what they wanted, that this was vice, and despicable, and the price of it was Hell. Curses of vanished elders echoed down on me: too pretty, too soft, too pale, eyes far too full of the Devil.

The sight of his sharply focused and unchanging eyes unnerved me, and I was quiet inside and full on protecting those nearest me, the ones who were helping me, but I was not strong enough just yet to face that one damnable little vial of ugliness that Avicus was. Every one of the boys I lived with in Vol Dorma knew of this. The Master knew good from evil, he knew of deceit. The boys were good boys.

My soul simply paralyzed and it was eating itself up in absolute terror. It was a deafness, it was a sickness. Masters? Sure, I had plenty. But none did manage to leave a print and an open wound as unbearable as he did. I will not bore you with the details, as I said, but every slave has that one master who will simply make his soul die for at least a few seconds before snapping back to life,  _if_ they ever get to. Me? I am not so sure I am going to.

It is truly wicked, truly saddening... to find yourself back in the claws of one who had killed you so many times by day and by night. I had worked hard to come to a form of reasonable behaviour, of reasonable motives to exist, of reasonable pleasures of life to enjoy, to allow!

What I do know… I don't even remember. I simply now I woke up from the blood spell he had put on me and I was alone. Again, alone and now helpless more than ever. I was mechanically driven to get out, to snap, to get away. Then something simply changed. Perhaps I am under a spell right now. Perhaps… we never truly change. Not after this much horror. And I never truly knew what it meant, to die.

And it is a madness, to know now that there is nothing worse than for a fallen saint to become a horrid devil. I was animated against my will… or maybe I was a compliant little pet again. I do not know. All I do know is that it was such a painful sight and I could not control my mind. I had no body, I had no soul. There might have been – there  _was_ , this little man inside of me, Armand, but he was chained by all my internal organs as if they were made of metal and spikes; they suffocated him and clung to him like impatient executioners. They had no more time to waste on such foolishness.

I was Amadeo again.

* * *

The fear began to gnaw on her, worming its way into the pit of her stomach.

"You can't be serious," Hawke snorted in anger, then put a hand over her forehead. "Who am I kidding? Of course you're serious."

"What?" Avicus asked innocently with a grin. "You can't endure this?"

"Like hell I won't," she gritted her teeth in control. "This is the poorest way to play with my weaknesses if I've ever seen one."

"Well," Avicus laughed. "Let us see if you do have them."

She frowned in confusion and he continued, "Maybe what you lack is in fact, mercy. Maybe in reality, you are just as much the wolf that kills for his own safety, searching for his pack to justify it as goodwill." He grinned deviously and shrugged playfully, "Who knows? Maybe without them, you might just be a killer."

"Maybe you're barking mad," Hawke snarled in a controlled tone.

"Simple, irreducible," Avicus continued calmly. "And even so," he snorted and started moving around them, ending up next to Armand and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, "if you cannot endure this… how can you endure eternity, my child?" he asked calmly, while caressing Armand's shoulder from behind. "Don't you know that's what I mean to give you?" he asked eagerly, tilting his head so it would touch Armand's.

What a spit, what a horrible spit in her sight. She tried to search Armand's eyes for his sanity, to fathom any trace of him being the same. For a moment, it seemed as if he twitched his lips in a faint expression of disgust, the one she sometimes saw Fenris let out vaguely whenever there would be a mention of slavery, or when they had to deal with such beings. It felt inevitable, that she would have to fight him. Her eyes pressed further into his, capturing his impenetrable expression. He was indomitable, out of this world, his face bore the cruelty of past realities he would have never wanted to live again. His sharp green-eyed gaze had a fullness of calm hostility, but they bore no malice, no hunger, no intent for slaughter – at least she wanted to believe it. It sickened her to let him be touched by this monster of incurable pride. It sickened her to see the deaf box of screaming in front of her, that was Armand. It was inconceivable that he would turn so quickly, it was… no. He had no choice, unless he was somehow paralyzed and animated by some blasphemous spell.

"You little imp," Hawke said with calm assertiveness. "You miserable little whelp."

"Ah, you damnable little child," Avicus cried joyfully. "I could have given you so much more. Instead you would weep and kneel in front of any poor defenceless soul as if that would make a difference." He walked around her now. "You know it does not make a difference."

"And your rule does?" Hawke asked calmly.

"You are not helping yourself. You give and give, all while destroying yourself in the process," Avicus said with a smile, gesturing at her sword. "I do things in such a way, that it both benefits me, as well as others. Amadeo knows best, how much I have helped him," he said as he glanced warmly at the elf, then started to approach her. "And even so, you know better than me what it means to make the most of where you are, in a land where fortune favours no mage."

"Excuses," Hawke muttered sharply. As if suddenly making use of  _all_ her "potential" would make a difference for the better.

"There are reasons why the Imperium has never ever crumbled, even amidst a whole world that is dead-set on ending people like us," Avicus said calmly. "And people like  _you,_  there are few, but benefited the empire greatly." She flinched a bit, hearing those words, so he grinned. "Have I piqued your interest then?"

"Oh, yes, this is most interesting," Hawke nodded mockingly. "Such a perfect time for pointless history lessons."

"You are right," he said. "Few like us remain. We should make history, not dwell upon it."

"You want to make an army then?" Hawke asked calmly. "Gather all the forces you can get, all types of people, classes and nationalities, so there would be no one simple goal. It would not look like a common protest and it will never look like it's about mages. Instead, it would look like preservation of liberty, for everyone. I get it, I get it," she laughed. "I want to part of it."

"A shame, really," Avicus said calmly. "If you really are set on me to be your enemy, I would see it as most reasonable to abuse of my help, until you turn the tables. Strike from the inside. I suppose there are still lessons you have yet to learn."

"You really are without faults, aren't you?" Hawke snarled. "Good. This will make it a lot easier."

"You do not fear me. I respect that," Avicus said calmly. "But do not forget, I do not fear you either, my lady."

"How merciful for you," Hawke mocked him with a smile.

"Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me," Avicus recited candidly. "Hessarian was a wise man. Too wise for his own good. Few are capable of perceiving the world with such clarity, yet they overlook the high price they will have to pay." He looked at her sharply and continued, "One act of mercy which led to chaos for a whole people. He did not take into account… that justice and mercy do not have an impact on people's minds. They cannot conceive of equality and peace. They just open doors to more cruelty, to find someone else to pester and blame." Then he laughed bitterly, "No wonder the spirits have no interest in our world."

"And you actually believe you are some dignified vagabond good-doer mage in disguise who gets away with using demons because it's people's own fault they hold darkness in their hearts. Punish and bring justice by making use of the sickness the Maker left us with and practically threw on a plate for us," Hawke pressed insistently. "Forsake this creed. You are too smart for it."

"Do you see me possessed by some foul creature?" Avicus chuckled. "Like you said, I am too smart for it."

"I don't give one spitting copper that you're not possessed," Hawke shouted.

"But I do," Avicus laughed. "You are like me. You do not desire. You do not search. You do not fear to be blown away by some cruel discovery and change your entire views because of one simpleton or the other. The world just goes on and on, and it is your place to do, but not for your own gain. Therefore, demons have a bit of trouble figuring out what you need. Therefore, you do not yield."

"Oh, goodie. Someone finally gives me some credit," Hawke said sarcastically. "This must be destiny."

"You jest, but it's the truth," Avicus said, smiling. "Why else would it be so, that you haven't yet perished in these catacombs?" He grinned, playing with her logic. "Think about it."

"I tire of this," Hawke growled and lowered her brow. "You want me to kill your slave?" She drew the sword out of her sheath calmly. "Fine by me."

"Do you think me a fool?" Avicus laughed. "You lie through semantics of truth with such talent. Do you think I don't know what strategy you are trying to pull?"

"Now you're just contradicting yourself," Hawke said with her temper almost losing it. "This is pointless."

She knew it, that he wasn't the one to speak with. She knew she couldn't attack him, but he was not going to attack her either. Not unless she pissed him off entirely. Armand, or whoever he was now, would possibly strike her, though.  _Where in the Void are you people,_ she shouted within. Fenris and Zevran had better had some plan to get them out of this mess. If not, so be it. Set Armand free was her first priority, not make them both get out alive.

"Enough, indeed," he sighed. "I trust you will stick with your principles," he said with a smile. "But just to be sure," he said playfully and distanced himself from them. Soon whirls of light refracted from his hands and formed a circular barrier around the two. "So nobody would disturb you."

_Fuck._

* * *

"Venhedis," cursed Fenris incessantly. "Fasta vass."

"Come with me," Zevran said calmly and started to walk in the next corridor past the room Hawke had went in.

"You think I'm going to trust you and leave Hawke?" Fenris almost shouted desperately.

"If you want to mope around and curse thinking this will save her, by all means, do that," Zevran said confidently, spinning a dagger between his fingers. "But if you want to be truly awesome, we need to take the upper hand."

"You've got three seconds to state your strategy, then I'm going inside," Fenris hissed impatiently.

Zevran reached for one of the many pockets of his belt and got out a set of strangely looking bejewelled keys. "I got this out of Pasquale while he was so busy harassing our lady friend."

"And?"

"And mind you, if we go in, do not doubt we will simply be stricken down by a horde of hidden assassins lurking in the shadows through some hidden doors," Zevran stated quite calmly. "Now, as much as these catacombs make me think that if I suddenly swallowed through the wrong hole, I might not battle it and let myself choke to death, I'm thinking…  _not today._ "

"No more riddles, elf," Fenris growled in annoyance as he approached him.

"We go around and strike from behind any hidden back-up this man has packed in about," Zevran said strategically. "And then maybe you could put that trick of yours to good use."

"We don't have time for this," Fenris said angrily. "They will murder each other."

Zevran looked down bitterly with a pause, "Trust her. I trust my own friend, that he will not do anything stupid."

"I'm not counting upon some fantasy that people simply forget their blind instinct all of a sudden," Fenris shouted.

"They are both strong," Zevran said quietly. "Have some faith. They would not want us to go mad now, lose our temper and get reckless. This is our only chance."

Fenris pondered on it for only a second, before his face drew a sharp scowl, disgusted at himself. Frustrated to no end, that he was powerless. He sighed and walked towards Zevran, admitting within that this was their best chance to ensure everyone survived this mess.

* * *

The popular school of thought among non-warriors was that two-handed longswords and greatswords were these large, clumsy, unwieldy things that knights hacked away at each other with, and that was not used with any technical finesse. That was pure bullcrap. Unless you were dead-set on going heavily on defence with a one-handed sword and a shield to use as a dignified, standalone weapon, you needed to be as quick as agile as any self-respecting rogue. Greatswords even, were simply longswords just a  _bit_ longer, a blade and a grip just a  _bit_  longer to make the central weight point just right and easier to hold correctly. It didn't weigh more than some three, four pounds actually. And longswords, well, they weighed two pounds. Even a child could wield it, and that's what Hawke did. Understand, in the lines of Ferelden fighting tradition, longswords had the larger popularity and almost all the merits. Though still wielded two-handedly, it was lighter and much easier to learn, once any aspiring warrior grasped the pure basics.

A greatsword however, was a specialized and effective infantry weapon and although large, it wasn't as hefty as it looked. It was actually more of a longsword, while what people now called longswords were merely just medium swords that could be used with one hand with a shield or buckler. They were not called longswords just because the blade was long, but because the hilt was meant for two-handed wielding. Of course, there  _were_ actual, very long and heavier claymores, but they were mostly used in the first ranks of the infantry to cut down opposing pikes and hack out breaches, but more than that, they were rather impractical. Yes, they were used sometimes in battle, because they were enchanted, but still, they weren't the best.

A usual two-handed sword however, it was lethal, and its use was considered as special skill, often meriting extra pay. Once their father became weaker and the first symptoms of his illness started to emerge, he asked a friend in the army to help Hawke and Carver. Ironically enough, his name was Ser Armand. While already perfecting in the arts of two-handed longswords, Ser Armand pressed strongly that they should specialize, and if not that then simply add to their knowledge the arts of wielding claymores and greatswords. Those were the ones they were counted upon heavily in battle, apart from shielded warriors, especially among the first-line troops that were trained to stride the first enemy offences and infantry. It was not long before both siblings took up the so called greatsword that they realized it was  _the one._ The simple secondary crossguard was exactly what they needed to parry effectively without getting their fingers cut off.

Well, bullshitting aside, perhaps the real story was that neither of them would give up if the other chose to learn it. They wouldn't give each other the privilege of letting one gloat over the other. Be that as it may, would it not for their frustrating need for competition, who knows? They would have ended up as poor little maidens crying for a duel, because that's how much they could bear.

Now faced with Armand, Hawke could not be more grateful that she had found one of the two-handed Ferelden swords she had brought with her that night. She was also grateful that she hadn't forgotten to take her lucky red band off her usual sword and wrap around the ring of the pommel of this one just in case she needed a miracle. She did. Dual-wielding with the other one a few hours ago, it was for show. It was impractical. This time, she needed to concentrate and she needed precision. Enough precision to intercept the whole of Armand's attacks without getting her or him killed, as much as she could. He was wielding a two-handed sword himself, clearly of Tevinter origin, clear-cut and narrowing towards the pointy end and bearing the Tevinter dragon symbols on its flat. In another more peaceful situation, she would have tackled it out of him and examined it for hours in immersed fascination. Right now, she was near the point of despair. While still bearing chainmal underneath her colourful coat, Armand had a chest plate, he had chainmal sleeves and spiky shoulder pads, knuckle-plates and sharp gauntlets. Simple luck would have it though, that her grip was longer and continued after the crossguard for the sole purpose of cleaving through armour.

Great. Now what. That was not enough.

Rather cold and impassive he was, as they circled around the barrier without striking at each other just yet. She wondered if he brutally wished he didn't have to do this. Maybe he was buying time, too. Of course, they couldn't encircle one another for ages. It built up frustration and fear inside, which didn't work in their favor once the adrenaline rush kicked in. It would make any successful strike be felt, rather than numbed out by the adrenaline, simply because of the nerve endings being so active from the annoying delay of the inevitable.

But she couldn't find it in her courage to strike. She was moving slowly, holding at the grip with her black leather gloves as her only pillar of balance. What to do? Strike first and end this misery so he'd thank her later or let him strike first and become an even colder beast named something Antivan-sounding that she forgot. Amadeus… Amadeo… Whatever. He had to snap back to reality, if he was still not just pretending. He had to.

And then it began.

She only pretended to go for a strike, getting back the sword just in time as not to bind it with his. Although taunting aside, it was enough to throw the gauntlet. Armand came at her with a 45-degree angle cutting attempt. She stepped to her right quickly and kicked her elbow in his back. Unbalanced, Armand rolled over fast and reassumed his position. She was not going to strike him even if he was exposed. She would wait for a miracle first.

Again, he came at her, attempting a vertical cut. She stopped his sword with her own horizontally, and grabbed the other end of her blade to sidestep and kick the pommel in his neck while his blade and hands were immobilized by the technique. She did so and pushed as hard as she could so it would bring him down. As he fell, she looked at him urgently and tried to say something, but no words were coming to her. Was he even trying?

She backed away and let him get up again. It seemed as though this would go on forever. Words finally came to her mouth, "We don't have to do this. We can-"

"Another word and I'll slit your throat," Armand growled quickly. What? He was battling between going serious on her and being merciful? Between Armand and Amadeo?

She didn't say another word. She simply took the offence. Going for a normal 45 strike, Armand parried with his sword half-horizontally. She instinctively grabbed the pointy end of his blade to try and disarm it completely, but she was surprised to see him brutally grabbing the end of her sword too. In a second, the inertia made her fall against his shoulder. Armand raised her sword and got his out her grip, and with her fallen against his chest, he side-stepped and pushed into her. As she fell down, she was still holding on to him and dragged him down with her, kicking him away in an instant.

Starting to bind blades, they kept their defenses going. Guarding every attack, they were simply not making other lethal attempts. He meant to scare her, that was obvious. She was doing the same thing. Harrowing as it was, she had to keep going. With another 45 cutting attempt, she blocked it with her sword, his edge ending up pushing against her crossguard. She raised the grip up, her blade reaching therefore to his neck. She meant to scare him. She didn't thrust. Armand saw this and grabbed the end and pushed it against her, the pommel ending against her head. They backed away again.

The adrenaline finally kicked in. By every second, they became more offensive, but very controlled. It seemed more like a fencing practice than an actual duel. Perhaps that's what it was. But the longer the time went, the more they were animated by their blind instinct, so the less control they had over their friendly attacks.

As the swords bumped again, she managed to deceive the length to which she wanted to strike and wounded his arm. He instead, pretended to go for a vertical cut and as she prepared to block it, he quickly redirected it horizontally and wounded her knee. As she tried to back away while holding her knee, Armand charged into her. She parried with her cross-guard again, pushing as much as she could, but Armand spun his sword over her cross-guard and they both tried instinctively to cock each other's hands and grab the other's sword. As they wrestled, Armand manage to side-step and spin around her. Behind her, still having his hand on the grip of his sword, he brought the pointy end to his other hand and held the blade at her neck. He brought her to her knees with the blade still at her neck, then got it away and attempted to thrust one-handedly. She rolled over just in time as the sword cleaved into the ground with a metallic roar. Armand growled in annoyance and walked towards her.

It was time to take a little serious offense. Armand was simply  _excellent._ She needed him incapacitated, or at least wounded. If she attempted to use magic, it would be over. Avicus would call it cheating and bring both of them unconscious with some loathsome blood spell. Not that she had mana to attempt a paralysis spell anyway. That was also a problem. With all the healing she had done to Fenris and Zevran, she had only her physical strength to rely on. How long before she would go into withdrawal? She would not think about such things. Armand was coming for her.

The myth of one-hit kill was indeed, just a myth. Even if either of them managed to do some big-ass swing and cleave right through one another, there was still blood flowing and pumping in the arms to counter-attack. The other's blade would not suddenly stop because the other managed to thrust inside. The time it would take the other to get the sword back out, was also irrevocably fatal. They knew those things and that each good technique they did was not going to overpower the other. Even if Armand went for an open line, snap-cutting at Hawke's shoulder, which he did twice, it was just a simple cut and the blade would storm right back to him. It was enough to wound one another. And wounding was also enough for Hawke's adrenaline rush to make her counterattack with better precision.

As he went again, she decided to go for his armour. Half-swording was invented for a reason. They bumped swords again and she grabbed her blade halfway and thrust into his armour. As he tried to counterattack, she moved past it and inverted her sword, holding it with the grip up and the pointy end down. It would not cut through her gloves, because she knew how to hold it correctly. She hit with the hilt behind Armand's neck, and with the long guard pushing at him from behind, she brought him lower and punched him in the face effectively. Then she threw him away and reassumed her defensive position.

It would not be long until one of them wounded the other enough to drop dead.

* * *

Vividly, the incandescent blue fumes coming from the lyrium markings turned pulsating black, as Fenris resisted under the magic damage of three mages hiding in a secret passage. He crushed their hearts mercilessly as Zevran incapacitated every enemy with his pretend-gauntlets hiding away perfectly sharp wrist-blades. Every time, they stripped them of their belongings in hopes they would find better weapons. Fenris did take one ghost-blade for himself, then roamed the passages again with Zevran keenly watching for any surprise attack. It was tiring, they were both weakened, but counted upon Hawke's recent healing and trusted in their adrenaline.

As they came inside a room that was not there before, the silver-haired relentless Pasquale waited with two other assassins. Behind him, a passage full of cells could be seen. Just when they got in, Zevran pretend-bumped near Fenris and gave him the keys he stole from that man. It was clear what he wanted him to do.

"Still blessed by luck, I see," Pasquale said while shaking his head with hateful joy in his tone. Arms crossed, he raised his eyebrows in an unimpressed expression and hissed unemotionally, "This is the last time you fuck with me."

Zevran lowered his head in a brutally hungered look, brows joined together for the kill. He drew his blade and dagger out and said, "Then I better make it amazing."

As Pasquale and Zevran started dueling each other, Fenris thought to try out his newest addition in his weapon repertoire. With a clicking sound, the mechanism on his wrist turned and shot a blade in an assassin's shoulder. As they went for him, he turned his markings on and became difficult to hit. Evading their attacks, he grabbed one and pushed him into the other, cleaving through both of them with his sword into the wall. Then he was gone.

He rushed through the passage of empty cells and unlocked the metallic door in front of him. Behind it, there lay the real underground prison of the Crows. Cells full of bare-chested male humans and elves and some ragged-clothed females. They all rose from the ground and gave him sharp, untrusting looks as he took down the two guards.

He searched for another key as they scrutinized him in silence and went for the first door that enclosed all the other cells. As he pushed the key in, he finally said, "I am here to set you free, but my companions are in trouble. There are gondolas waiting for you above through the sewers. I just need your help first."

"Are you mad?" a bare-chested brown-haired elf said while clutching at the bars. "We're not marching into our deaths against a horde of the same people who managed to put us in here."

"Are you Crows?" Fenris asked unemotionally as he came near their cells. "All of you?"

"As far as we know," a muscular black-haired human said through the bars. "But we have no offense."

"You do know," Fenris said quickly as he opened one of the cages and gave the man a longsword. "There's plenty more where that came from. We managed to off most of the assassins the guild master brought with him."

"Still," another elf said from a cell. "You don't know half of this prison's trappings. You are a fool if you think this is going to work."

"Perhaps I should let you rot in that cage then," Fenris said angrily. "You want to be free? Come with me. If not, by all means, mumble with the rats for eternity for all I care."

"Yeah, shut your mouth Flavius. You want to die in here, fine by me, but we're going," said the black-haired hunky man. "Ricardo, Francesca, go back with Pip and strip those two numskulls of weapons. I'll go with our friend here."

As Fenris went deeper in the prison to free the others, the man shouted after him, "Wait up. Who sent you after us?"

"You have friends, apparently," Fenris said from a distance. "Know a Zevran, by any chance?"

"Well I'll be damned," the man said with a gasp and crossing his hands and shouting behind him to the others, "You hear this? Zev's  _alive_."

"Santo cazzo, then how is that crazy impnot in here with us? Wait… Then that means Pasquale is here," the brown-haired elf shouted back. He gestured a punch as he bumped his fists, "I have a bone to pick with that bastard."

Fenris shouted after them, "They're in the room behind you. There is also a mage in the grand hall behind the engraved doors where my companions are in trouble." He looked around the freed people and the ones still in the cells and issued like a true general, "I need two people with me to overthrow the guards. Everyone else go into the opposite way and wait at the main door until you're at least twenty. I don't need assassins shrouded in shadows and other nonsense. I need you _all_  to form an army."

* * *

Her skin burned against the magical barrier, as Armand threw her into it. Nevermind the coat, the magic went through it like flaming spears and she fell to the ground.

"Armand, snap out of this," Hawke shouted desperately as she kept rolling away and deflecting his attacks.

"Shut up," Armand hissed aggressively as he kicked her in the stomach and grabbed her throat, raising her up.

She kicked him in the knee and tried to get out. As she ran away and grabbed her sword back, Armand went after her. The wound on her leg was struck twice after that and she was losing ground. She could hear Avicus laughing hideously at the sight of their struggle.

"Do you want to die here?" Hawke screamed at him as she parried swords with him and held her defense. "Really, truly?"

Armand simply growled and attempted a spin counterattack against her parrying cross-guard to cleave into her. What was his frustration now? That he wanted to kill her so badly to be free? That he was afraid to die? That… Fuck this.

"Think of Dorian seeing you now," Hawke said quietly to him, as she blocked his attempt. She knew it was a petty way to unsettle him, but it needed to be done. If not to buy some more time, then to make him snap out of his crazed state and calm his aggression. Whatever happened after didn't matter. If he truly was going to outmaneuver her, then the battle was won and she died happily knowing he was free.

Then she saw the painful spark in his bestial eyes. The spark that changed everything, and only for a second she could see a twitch, an expression of utter sorrow, killed away instantly as Armand pressed his eyelids down shut and growled. He cocked her hands and immobilized them, pushing into her and falling down on top of her. He escaped her attempt to kick him and got up, putting a foot over her torso. She caught his sword right as he tried to cleave into her and tried to lock it in place with the whole of her force. "He's waiting for you to come home," she shouted, blood spilling out of her gloves as the edges of the sword cut the skin of her palms. "He's waiting for  _Armand_  to come home."

She felt the counterforce of his sword weaken, as his face grew dimmer and unsettled, sharp eyes once looked so utterly damned, now looked punished with guilt, anguish and shock. There he stood, crucified between the two beings inside him, paralyzed in his darkest hour as he stopped pushing against the incredibly resistant force of this woman who he knew was going to let him kill her soon enough if he continued. Persecuted in his thoughts, as the stranger enveloping his mind crumbled, he swallowed heavily. Just when he was about to bring his sword out of her unyielding bloody hands, he heard a large bang on the door. Then another more powerful one, and another, until the door finally collapsed to the ground and dozens over dozens of people rushed inside and ran towards Avicus and the group of mages and assassins under his command.

Oh, this was not the time to get overwhelmed. Armand back away in surprise and Hawke took the opportunity to rise from the ground and grab her sword again. The barrier disappeared. The mage needed all his mana to defend himself.

_Perfect._ Elves and humans kept rushing in, some bare-chested, some light-armoured, some holdings daggers, some swords and some even casting spells with their bare hands. They were battling the enemy forces with every bit of strength they had, amidst the marching roars, the smoke bombs, the battle cries and … the summoned demons.

Hawke and the bewildered-looking Armand shared a quick look which meant this real duel or charade was over and they would both take advantage of this surprise battle to go in against the blasphemous creature which put them through this havoc.

Men were falling down from above, stricken by the arrows of some allies who got their hands on ranged weapons. Running through the horde, she lost Armand in the crowd and battled the shades that were coming after some bare-chested prisoners. More and more shades came roaring from the ground. This was no time for abstinent mage excuses. She punched the ground and let out massive forcewaves that struck the groups down and away from the allies. One by one, she threw fireballs into them with such quick shots, it surprised her deep into every nerve ending.

Men were going to die now. Bad men, men that wronged and tortured, men that persecuted for poor justifications. But one man in particular she needed to see gasping for air and coughing blood, see the look on his face as he drew his lost breath in deep revolt and denial… his eyes widened and protesting, cursing at her with all his putrid soul. Not tomorrow, not after years in some surprise encounter, not even soon in a few moments, no. He was going to die  _now._

She saw Zevran in a distance battling some people, but where was…?

"Beware!" she heard Fenris from behind, coming to her left and intercept a bright massive storm coming at them. He growled in pain and black fumes came out of his markings again, deflecting the spell and weakening his health. Oh no you won't…

She grabbed him by the coat and pulled him away, shouting at him to get back. When he didn't listen, she ran past him and looked in rushing anger after the mage. Killing some few shades, Avicus showed up behind one of it and she charged into him with full precision. He blocked her sword with his staff and threw her away with a forcewave. Damn the undreaded, unholy, unearthed fucking undergods. She wasn't going to fall back now. She rose from the ground and went after him again, resisting the blood spell he was casting towards her. How much time before he guessed with every bit of heath she lost her strikes became quicker and more lethal?

She hit his staff and disarmed him, throwing it away with disgust and kicked him in the stomach. Another twirl of red and black came at her and she fell on the ground trying to resist it. As instinct would now have it, violet spirit charges came out of her hands and went with full force into him. She felt every bit of life and magic force in her leave her body as she channeled it further and tried to get up from the ground. But something went wrong. Something went terribly wrong. She didn't feel her body anymore. She was on the ground again, feeling only a demonic force crushing her heart. She couldn't hear anything, not her screams, nor the battle cries of the others. She only saw a dwarven figure coming out from a wall above their heads and shooting a fire bolt in the mage's robes. She could swear, even though she couldn't hear, that she  _heard_ the figure scream "Hasta la vista, Manskirts McUggo!".

Time slowed and her vision came shaking, darkening. Before it became pitch-black and swallowed by the catastrophe of that Avicus drawing a dreadful smile in victory of her death and ignoring the robes that caught him in place, a sword cleaved through him with relentless force from his back. The shock paralyzed him as the sword came out and a gauntlet grabbed his shoulder.

"Blasphemer," she heard him cry with a transformed, preternatural voice. He was turning into something else.

The gauntlet turned him around and she saw Armand with the most determined and driven look in history decapitate his master with a massive blow before he turned into an abomination. So massive, so quick, so harsh the cut was – so full of vengeance – that his head flew across the room and got swallowed by the battle horde.

She felt two hands from behind grabbing her under the shoulders and raising her up. She stumbled on the floor while standing and the room was spinning with her. She saw black and grey vertical-lined pants and bare feet. She saw Armand looking petrified.

"Through that door!" she heard Zevran shouting from somewhere.

* * *

The image changed instantly, my vision was crumbling. I saw dark passages, spiral stairs and eventually I saw the sky. I couldn't feel my feet, I couldn't hear much, but we were running across the roofs, _all_ of us. I heard something about gondolas, but not much else.

As we ran above the fullness of a violet sky, looking out at the wild grass beneath the roofs, flowing in the summer wind, for the first time in a long time, I felt a terrible longing for the sun. I didn't dare say anything to my companions about it however. After all, how many blessings can a being want? We were free, we were alive.

The air was cool and full of the scent of spring flowers. I could hear the nightingale singing. And far off the whisperings and murmurings of the great crowded city of Antiva. I turned my eyes towards the city. I saw her seven hills covered over with soft flickering lights. I saw the clouds above, tinged with gold, as they bore down on these scattered and beautiful beacons, as if the darkness of the sky were full with child.

I was still not myself, however. Everything spun around and hit me in the head. I blacked out so many times. I heard Fenris screaming angrily at me to stop. I remember I healed someone. Maker's breath, the images changed so quickly. One second we were on a roof, another one we were on the ground, running and running. Another time I saw dark shadows chasing after us. Another, I saw gondolas full of people marching in the distance across the green canals. I remember almost falling into the water. I remember someone dragging me back by the coat.

I heard Zevran saying Pasquale was not dead and he needed to flee the city as soon as he could. I heard Varric shouting in distress that we should stop and hide somewhere so I can come to my senses. I saw Armand full of grief and not saying anything.

I also felt hands clutching at me and redirecting my trajectory as we were running. It seemed my soul was a pendulum that swung between the hearty pleasure of conquest and running faster than my companions and the swooning surrender to stronger limbs, and stronger wills, and stronger hands that tossed me desperately about and telling me I was not alright. That I was weak and fainting, that I had lost all reserves. I heard Fenris cursing in his mother tongue again, over and over again.

Above, the silent clouds thickened, curled and sailed across the darkling sky. The rain came, its soft roar lost in the cries of people running, in the crackle of fire and the torrent of some drums nearby. I heard it and I let myself run through the damp air and received it, the silvery rain floating down to me like the blessing of the dark Antivan heavens, the baptismal waters of the damned.

I understood these images, even as they froze my soul. My head swam and the heat of the city at dawn and it made me sick in my stomach.

Then I saw a figure. A red-headed elven figure fully armoured in Warden regalia, a large griffon emblazoned upon the chest plate, going around a corner. I sought to run after it, my soul full of hope and drive to reach her. I heard my companions scream after me, but I couldn't help it. I jumped on the high fences of the garden I saw the Warden in and ran and ran and ran.

Life was no longer a theatrical stage where the Warden's ghost came again and again to seat herself at the grim table next to other figures I wanted to live up to. She was there and I had to catch her if it killed me.

My soul hurt, that I would not manage to reach her.

And then I woke up in some brothel…


	36. All Is Violent

So anyway, I woke up in the brothel and –

**You are** _**not** _ **telling this story.**

Back off, Fenris. You might still be angry, but I came with the idea  _first_ to barge into the story.

**I don't care. Your vision of how things went is corrupted and you're ruining it.**

You mean I'm ruining  _your_  reputation of being such a good and fine lad.

**Hawke.**

Yes, Fenris?

**Get out of this narration. I am not going to repeat myself.**

Psht. You already did! And I don't care one bit for your threats, Sir. I am telling this story!

**You are like a child.**

Fenris… with every time you say that comes this extremely disturbing image to every reader that you are a paedophile.

…

Yeah,  _now_ you get it.

**I am not.**

You sound like one.

_**You** _ **are putting this image in their minds.**

And I'll keep putting it if you don't let me take over this narration.

**Vishatta. Where is that damned author when you need them.**

Obviously drunk out of their mind in a gutter somewhere.

**That is** _**you,** _ **Hawke… And that's exactly why you shouldn't be telling this story.**

…

…

Hey, behind you! A giant fish!

… Alright, he's gone now.

* * *

So anyway… as I was saying. I went out of the brothel, remembering all of this.

Nighttime, was it? Staying near the inn with a very long name…  _Casa della libertà eterna e gli eroi sacri del nostro paese_  or something like that. Yes, yes that was it. I can't believe I remembered it. I had no idea what it meant.

_Shit._ Shit, shit, utter damned sodding shit. I hallucinated the Warden and ran from my group. How could I be so… out of my mind. Maybe I was obsessed. At least I knew now that I was in mana withdrawal. I couldn't remember how I got to the brothel however, but it didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that it was night again, which meant I had disappeared for at least a day… and I was screwed. Oh, I was going to get killed. Only thing that I wondered was who would get to me first – Varric or Fenris.

WHY. Why would I… Ah.

I couldn't concentrate, I knew I had to get up and right into the inn. I stumbled heavily and held onto the walls, went for the stairs and almost fell on myself and rolled all the way back. Fortunately somehow, every stranger ignored me. I made haste and went straight for the first room I remembered was inhabited by a companion of mine.

I spun around, or the hallway did, and when I opened my eyes again I stood in a familiar room. Long red curtains settled in front of me. It was warm here. In the shadows I saw the glinting outline of a silver greatsword.

"Fenris!" I said in fear and revulsion, that I should come like this into his room, without so much as a word after my impertinent disappearance.

The cold wind swept into the room from the open window before he slammed it shut, such a fearless creature, and he reached out with unerring accuracy, raising the wick of a nearby lamp. The flame rose and I saw Fenris in his old armour, staring at me in terror and anger, as I had probably left him for days in my giant gap of time.

His dark, haunted face was quick with questioning and alarm and he rushed towards me with a piercing scowl, only to stop because I very much did the same thing. I rushed forward, but only to be stopped brutally by his right hand, and with his left he took a hold of my face with such firmness it almost frightened me. He rested this hand on me as if either he was going to quickly behead me or he were a priest giving a blessing.

"Kevesh," Fenris swore bestially, squeezing at my arm as if to viciously crush it. "Festis bei umo canavuram."

I breathed heavily, still taken aback by his sudden outburst of brutality and in-between panting I frowned and said, "I- I… what?"

"It means," Fenris pressed aggressively, "You will be the death of me."

"Such rude necessity, Sir, all of it," I said unperturbed. "What choice after all did I have?" How brave he must have thought me to be, to stare into the eyes of the tiger, strong like fine silver suffused with steel and  _reckless_  like poking a dragon with a large bat, for making such a mocking statement even now. "Call me your oppressor all you want, I am not threatened."

Fenris scowled at me and quickly growled, then with the colossal little frown I had always found so fiercely provoking, he sharply contoured every word, "I am growing so viciously tired of your constant need for mockery." He let go of my hand, more so, shoved my hand down and let go as if it were nothing. I turned my head in confusion, but didn't yield to his barbaric shouts. In between so, I quickly forgot why I was even here.

"I do not mean to mock," I almost shouted desperately. "And being overly dramatic really doesn't suit you, Fenris."

His fierce eyes remained fixed and tense. He reached out to me again, cruelly taking me by the elbows and turning me around to throw me on the bed. So savage was he, that my head recoiled ever deeper against the headboard, my hand only vainly reaching out for the crimson red drapery as if that could save me. "You will tell me where you've been," Fenris commanded me mercilessly with dark narrowed eyes and in a fit of murderous rage to mask his concern. My instincts could only fight him back, but he shoved me back on the bed with no mercy and I hit my head against the pillow with eyes tightly shut.

"Tell me when you're done killing me," I said confidently, in-between the pain. "Then maybe I can tell you, if you still have the courtesy to leave me alive for a few more seconds. At least to make a list of my last regrets on my deathbed, no pun intended."

"Oh, I can think of a few regrets you will so desperately wish to amend for after I strangle you to death," Fenris growled cold-bloodedly as he grabbed me by the throat with no seeming bit of pity.

"Perhaps we can make it a sex bed, then? To amend for one of my last regrets?" I played sarcastically with a grin, because for some cruelly dumb reason, that was my nature, even while staring death right in the eye.

Fenris sighed violently through his flared nostrils. "You are the Fiend from Hell itself," he whispered harshly.

"Then let me go," I demanded commandingly, looking straight into his bloodthirsty green eyes, "You don't want to hurt me."

"Like hell I don't," he shouted deeply and his lyrium markings starting glowing blue.

I widened my eyes and quickly caught his scowling face in my hands, "I'm sorry, this was unworthy of me, please calm down," I pleaded with control, soothing his face as I did so.

"Liar," Fenris hissed at me. "You're never sorry. You lie through your teeth like a –"

"A viper?" I asked confidently, but with deep control, "Yes, a viper I am so. And I am at your mercy."

"Don't mock me," Fenris growled heartlessly and shoved my hands away from his glowing face.

"I am saying the truth," I said calmly. "If you wish to kill me for that, have at it. I am content and a bit proud that my death will be at your hand."

"So very poetic, is it not?" Fenris said ruthlessly as he sunk his spikes in my throat. "So fitting."

Too much of a rush came upon me, the sounds grew deaf and I flinched and inhaled quickly. "Snap out of it! This isn't you, Fenris."

"I wish it weren't, but it is," he said in bitter anger. "I so wish it weren't so."

I shut my eyes tight and put a hand over his throbbing chest, then opened them in pain with fear bulging out of them as I started trembling so violently. He felt my terror spasms under him, maybe even my honest, but in his eyes, petty attempt to reach out for his cold heart. Then as if struck by lightning, the lyrium glow faded away and suddenly his face changed entirely, replaced by one of utter astonishment and sorrow on his part. "I-… I'm so sorry."

I sighed in relief within and caught him by the back, wrapped my arms around him and made him fall on me, his head over my shoulder breathing monstrously. I could have sworn for a moment I heard him make some strange, weeping or gasping sound, but I didn't really hear it properly. No, maybe it was all in my head. Regardless, I pressed tightly with him in my arms and with one hand reached for his soft, messy hair. "It's alright. Calm down."

"I'm so sorry," he kept whispering hoarsely. "Forgive me, Hawke, forgive me."

"I forgive you," I said firmly and brushed my fingers in his hair reassuringly. "But it was my fault."

"No," he hissed through his teeth. "No."

"Yes," I contradicted harshly. "Yes, I provoked you. I should never have done it and we both know it."

"No," he pressed as his self-loathing voice whispered in my ear.

For a long time, I said nothing. I merely held him as tight as I could for fear he would break. Only gradually did I realize I was frightened. For one moment it seemed that fear would obliterate the warmth of the moment, the soft glory of the radiant light swelling in the curtains, of the polished plains of his face and his ivory hair, the sweetness of his scent on me. Then some higher, graver concern overruled the fear.

His skin was very hot, and I knew in an instant his mind had stroke the fever.

I could see now it was hopeless. His mind would never be opened, never truly changed. I him brought to me and laid him down on the pillows once more and sought to better understand what I could. His had been a punitive world of austere devotion. Living, fighting, breathing, for him, had been joyless. And indeed all of life itself in far-away Tevinter had been so rigorously cruel that he could not give himself over to the pleasure that awaited him now at every turn. Or to the simple fact that was indeed, just a good man.

He was silent but I knew he was thinking. I turned and tried to read his mind. It seemed chaotic, and full of wandering thoughts and guilt. He was a warrior almost entirely at the mercy of those who took him, but he had made himself supreme by virtue of the particularities that I cherished in his way of doing things. He was never one to take delight in killing. He was never one to cherish the death of others, unless of course they were truly evil. Even in the face of the Arvaraad who wanted to kill Ketojan, a mage of all things, he intervened and screamed that they had their captive and there was no need to kill him. Nowhere were his talents more fully expressed than in battle and he knew this though he couldn't put it into words. He thought hard on how to tell me about his way of discharging of fear or hate, but he simply couldn't do it. And I would not press him. It would be a wicked thing to do.

With him was an easy intimacy which he had denied all those who had tormented him, so dazzled and confused was he by my simple kindness, and the words I whispered in his tender ears. I brought him quickly to know the pleasures which he had never allowed himself before. He was dazed and silent; but his prayers for deliverance were no more. Yet even here in the safety of this bedroom, in the arms of one he came to see as his equal, nothing of his old memory could move from the recesses of his mind into the sanctum of reason. Indeed, perhaps these frankly carnal embraces made the wall in his mind, between past and present, all the more strong.

How can I describe him? His beauty did not depend on his facial expression. It was stamped already on the face and in his soul. It was all wrought up with his fine bones, serene mouth, and his messy white hair. And he's had no experience with it except in cruelty. In Fenris, I saw the sunny skies of the northern wilderness, eyes of steady radiance which rejected any outside color, perfect portals to his own most constant soul.

As for this soul, his soul, there were simply so many words one just couldn't bind to him and  _that_ could be it. No, he was so inconceivably different than anything and anyone I had ever known, that I found myself taken aback and immersed into his words and perspective in such a ravishing, effortless way, it felt almost unnatural, simply because it was natural.

Yet in his mind, unbeknownst to the others in any material way, Fenris perceived himself, at least how I felt it, at my behest, as secretly belonging to me. It was for me a great and terrible contradiction. For him no doubt as well. I feared and feared, day after day, that his mind would become overwhelmed with such shocks that his soul couldn't take them and I was right, because I could see the weakness in his eyes, desperate and striving to deny me, to annul me as if to make me a little point in the air and crush it. He did not mean to hurt me, he did not mean to kill me. He meant to annul me. Because I had struck such great fear and concern in him with my disappearance and all I could account for was how much of a comedian I could be in such inappropriate moments. I regretted it as soon as I realized it, but it was natural to me to defend myself through such acts, as his was to convert his fear into anger. And such a grand fear this was, I could see it now.

A cruel fancy of love – it involves the cruel thought of killing the object of love, so that it may be removed once and for all from the mischievous play of change. For love is more afraid of change than of destruction.

As for me, I had never experienced such pure intimacy with someone, except with those I meant to kill. It gave me chills to have my arms around this man, Fenris, to press my lips to his cheeks and chin, his forehead, his tender closed eyes.

I loved him instantly and impossibly from about the time before we went into the Deep Roads, I had to admit.

I grabbed him firmly and pulled him up and away from me, giving him an angry look. "I DID MOCK YOU. I  _am_ the Fiend from Hell itself. I'm a big fucking bitch, is what I am. Understand?"

He panted and looked at me with half-closed eyelids, then finally said in a deep voice, "You said it, not I."

"Good," I approved confidently. "Now that we've established that, how about we calm ourselves down?"

But his face was still dark and haunted, his body was trembling heavily next to me and I thought he would break right then and there. I couldn't take the sight, and quickly dragged him back into my arms, holding him tight, to which he did not oppose. He needed time to cool off from this sudden outburst of converted hostility. But I knew it in my heart that he would never do it. If only he could see it too, between the terror I'd caused him, and for him to become. I saw my blunder, my utter stupidity in my ways, and regretted it deeply. Yes, on my sudden deathbed, I had one clear regret now that pierced me like spears, but I had to stay strong, for him.

His breathing was heavy and he was somber. He shivered still, and when his hand found me it was unsteady.

I turned him to the side and lied on my own side too, still embracing him protectively and he quickly, as like a child in terror, clutched at my back and buried his face against mine as our foreheads bumped and his heavy breathing blew heat on my chin. I didn't know what to say, but wasn't my act enough, perhaps? I still felt the need to say something.

His dark eyes pierced at me pleadingly to forgive him again, so I sighed in annoyance, for I felt as if I was deliberately trying to calm a hysterical child. Vividly remembering the shadowy outlines of his face as he would contain his smile whenever I would say a joke, as well as his persecuted face as he sometimes looked like he wanted to say something, but killed the thought in his mind and went on just to listen to me, not to mention the times when I would lash out in my anger and tell him I wanted to die because I was so sick of being a mage and I would see his controlled discomfort, appearing as if he was ready to slap me… well… I buried his face against my chest. "It's alright. I promise you, I'm not mad. I understand and I know you would have never done it."

He didn't answer. He didn't agree with me.

"I know you won't listen to me, but it needs to be said," I said firmly, brushing his soft and overgrown hair. "You're not a beast. You are  _not_."

"Oh, but I am," Fenris whispered bitterly. "I am my master's creation."

"Former master," I pressed insistently. "Former."

"It doesn't matter," Fenris whispered in a soft voice, and I felt his head shaking in refusal at my chest.

I sighed in desperation. "Dear lunatic, please pay attention. It does. It does and I see it," I pressed in frustration and squeezed at him tightly. "You're not a bestial creation." I shut my eyes forcefully and kissed his forehead. "You are Fenris."

My chest pulsated as he chuckled against it. "That's exactly it," he said with a dark voice, ignoring my affection. "Fenris, the wolf. Fenris – the parvus lupus who knows nothing but how to take a life and is all the more dangerous because he knows he will not die."

I didn't know how to plead more than that because he was not so. As if I had to graphically bleed my heart out for him to understand such simple words, to show him how wrong he was. I quickly remembered something Father pestered me with, thank the gods for his soul. I searched my mind for words I had learned from him in Tevene so the sentence would be all the more impacting, words propelled out of the forgotten present, "Lupus non mordet lupum."

He paused his loathing in an instant. Utter, soul-breaking silence. Then he lifted his head up to look at me in awe. "A wolf does not kill a wolf," he translated instinctively in terror, more for himself. "How did you-"

"You didn't know me when I was younger," I said honestly. "I would lash out in blind rage at my failures, ready to snap my Father's throat. He'd say that to me every time, - not in Tevene - instead of disarming me, to train my control. And I would calm down."

He raised his head to catch my eyes. He locked those persecuted green eyes on me and listened to me quietly, "People such as you and I, while their burden of conscience is terrible and their mind might seem wolfishly cruel and depraved, they are afraid to be kind. And they are afraid to receive kindness, just as well. We are not meant to be loners, Fenris, as natural as it seems, we are not meant to go through it alone. Just as the lone wolf hunts in the night, but cannot truly survive without its pack. "

He looked at me with a sorrowful frown, then shut his eyes tight. I caught his face and stroked it gently, "You can ramble all you want that you are what that son of a bitch made you, but you are not. I see it in you, every day, as I watch you – I watched you grow by my side, by  _our_ side, and you've indeed grown so much and well. Much more than I can say for myself," I said bitterly and looked away for a second, but turned my eyes back to him, who seemed to be breaking inside. I pressed further, "You are immensely good-hearted and I dare even say, selfless sometimes. Trust my words, I am not lying to you. I never did. You are a good man."

I could see a short sigh of relief within his eyes, that he did not dare to express on the outside. He looked sad, glanced just for a second at the our swords leaning against the wall. Finally, he almost whispered, in a deep voice, "You are terribly kind." I gave him a broad smile and watched his wondering eyes. "For someone who almost had you at their mercy, for me who was on the verge of bringing you untimely death."

"I would not let that happen," I said firmly. "But I sought to show you just how much I trust you, deliberately stripping myself of all defences."

He shook his head bitterly, "You're so deeply, terribly crazy, Hawke."

He trembled, fearing to let go of me, his head hanging heavily, his luxuriant hair soft against my hands.

"I am what I am," I said in amusement. "I am evil, yes. Yes, I am."

"You are quite the contrary," he said almost warmly, finally,  _finally,_ giving me a short, painful smile. "Why do you let me do this to you, Hawke?" he whispered with deep sorrow in his breath. "I can't-"

"Because I'm the only one crazy lunatic who can bump horns with you and resist," I said firmly. "And what doesn't kill you, just as well, what  _you don't_ and can't kill, only makes you stronger."

And it was true. I had made it my unconscious duty ever since that first night in the courtyard, to bump heads with him whenever he wanted to, because we both knew I wouldn't disappoint him. He could ramble, scream, howl, call me names. It didn't ultimately matter, because I was offering him support either way. I didn't want to make it my mission to demonstrate I was not like the mages he was accustomed to and I didn't want to impress him. The jokes, the rants, the arguments, they were personality-driven and quite frankly, they never had anything to do with mages. However, he did listen to me and my theories, just as I offered to listen to him. Taking him seriously was just the first step, the second being not to try to prove myself, but simply go on and show him I welcomed him in my world without much thought that he hated my kind. I didn't need to prove myself, but he needed proof that I could be trusted. So I did that. As in, nothing.

His eyes filled with gratitude, "I can't… I can't thank you enough."

I snorted. "Oh, pssht. It's my pleasure to face you and make you discharge of all this hate."

"Without even the faintest chance of giving up," Fenris finished with a soft, kind-hearted smile.

"Take it out on me, I don't mind," I said confidently. "A worthy opponent, that just turned out to be my dearest friend," I said warmly, stroking his cheek, then corrected myself, "With whom I don't want to sit in these horizontal positions every now and then without  _thanking_ him."

He turned and took me in his powerful and ever careful embrace.

He laid his head against my head, and he held tight to me. "I don't deserve you, Hawke," Fenris said hoarsely, looking sorrowful with his green eyes onto mine.

How knowing, how clever was his expression! HOW full of secret triumph he seemed suddenly in his silence and patience, because I didn't fear him. How utterly damned.

I shook my head disapprovingly. "What a modest idiot you are."

He grinned at me ever so warmly with fierce determination, "If you grant me this honor, I will be your modest idiot," then quickly said in a deep voice without further ado, "I am yours."

My eyes flinched, but I didn't hesitate at his honest demand. Such a firm statement, and much to really take remark on, for possessive terms one would never expect from a former slave. There were no words. No, no words in the world could describe this, so I didn't make use of any.

Although, I do believe I hesitated, but that I don't recall. What is vivid still is that we stood there in peace and that, though I failed myself morally, I did not fail him at all. I did not fail the two of us as a woman and a man who could strip almost whole of their soul to each other in their curious friendship, expressing hidden vulnerabilities  _almost_ without effort, and there was afterwards both a drowsiness and a sense of exultation that left no room for shame.

Though I remember… I smiled warmly, and in the most common human way he lowered his eyes as he did, and he smiled too. His generous lips parted, and I saw last only that hauntingly beautiful smile of his. He put his hands beneath my arms, lifted me and kissed my lips, and the shivers paralyzed me. I clung to his shoulder and kissed him back. There was a stronger, more virile intimacy due to my crude act of hours or days ago. I closed my eyes and felt his fingers on top of them, and heard him say into my ear, "Sleep as I take you home."

* * *

Ok… maybe he didn't say that. I think it's high time I left this scenery though, for I made abuse of my first-person narrative privileges and I think I got the story a bit not that correct on that last part. Don't blame me, I'm so out of it!

**I** _**told** _ **you that you would ruin it.**

Oh, hey… uh… where did you come from? Finally caught that fish?

**That is none of your business.**

Let me guess… someone's grumpy again.

**How can I not be? Look at what you did. Sleep as I take you home… who in the Void says that?**

You did say that once… I think … just not this time. Ugh! Sue me, I can't put everything in the right place.

**Thank the Maker you stopped. Who knows what other theatrical abomination of words your highly disturbed imagination might have spewed in between those "heartbreaking" monologues.**

Bugger off, Fenris. They needed to understand my way of thinking.

**Your way of thinking…? Bah. What does it matter if you use** _**I** _ **or** _**she** _ **?**

… Exactly.

…  **Not to interrupt your charming arguments but, we are kind of having a moment here.**

Right.

* * *

When she smiled, it ended all misery. The thought of her slipping out of his hands again was no more, as she peered into his eyes with such sweet frankness that she became irresistible to him. She wrapped her arms around him and he lifted her back up with haste to kiss her. As she did so, Fenris desperately wanted to tell her everything; he felt it was his duty now to come clean about his demons and regrets he had never forgotten. He needed to tell her. She of all people was wholeheartedly there for him and deserving to know of  _everything._ But her kiss was so firm and willing, he gave in to his weaker senses and grabbed her face with strong warmth. He kissed her with the whole of his heart and soul. Nothing in the world could stop him from loving her. He didn't care for the word though; it was much more of an immense feeling than that, one that would linger undying forever, as far as he was concerned.

There was a great noise around them, as of the flapping of the wooden doors and of draperies billowed and snapped. The colder air coming from the window that magically opened on its own surrounded them. He set her down. He could hear the water of the canal near them, lapping, lapping, as the summer wind stirred it and drove the sea into the city, and he could hear a wooden boat knocking persistently against a dock.

He let slip his fingers, and she opened her eyes as he lay on top of her, watching. How graceful she was, how devoid of pride and bitterness. How these horrors were cast aside.

She slipped her arm around his neck and kissed his forehead. He kept his eyes on her. The pleasure moved all through him, and helpless, he let the air escape his lips in a rosary of sighs.

He wanted to kiss her again as he had done the very first time in the common room of her mansion. No more angry intents, no more sudden drive out of displaced feelings or some battle to see who gives in first. He had her there under the wholeness of his strong physique like any common man overshadowing a fragile woman in the firmness of his hold. Quietly, he lowered his head and placed his lips onto hers, moving them softly only to the limit of her permissions. At least for a while, they would have been enough. As though accepting that concealed ardent moving of his lips, she bit them playfully. A moment he paused, inhaling quickly like a saint pondering and crucified between peace and temptation. But just for a moment. He rose decisively, throwing his gauntlets away without a care and turned his eyes back to her all alight with fire. He needed to feel her whole. He came back down, brushing his fingers against her face. Locking it into his gentle grasp, he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She could feel his fingers burning against her cheek. And there came the old rampant shower of his kisses, not the mock of a passionate man, but his affection, petal soft, so many tributes laid upon her face and hair. She loved his way of coming off softly and ending up more stronger with affection, feeling him tremble, feeling him thrill to it, feeling him shudder, feeling him whip the threads from inside her soul, quickening her heart and making her nearly cry out, feeling him love it, and stiffen his back and let his fingers tremble and dance as he writhed against her.

It seemed he was quite undecided as to what to do. But then she saw his seemingly thoughtful face grow blank with hunger. She watched him with the back of her eye, losing all the grace of a contemplative elf, appearing to be driven and close his lips against her neck. No glimpse of teeth, no moment of cruelty. Merely a calm final kiss.

Fenris suddenly saw himself as if in a smoky mirror, no longer a boy clumsy and fearful, but more a man who knew exactly what to do. Seated on the pillows under him, he rushed to prove the honesty of his statement, displaying his unreserved affection with this curious drive that he had thought so many times in the past he would never bear or allow. Let alone to be touched, no. This he thought he'd never do. But now he was ever ready to be completely aroused by her tender lips and her small graceful white hands.

Up around his neck, she slipped her arms. He enjoyed that little feeling, that she needed to hold on to him for safety. She saw a delighted grin painting up on his face, as he leant his weight against her and kissed her reddening cheeks, and then her tender throat, and caught her girlish smile and gleaming glance as she played on, her head tilting back to brush against his hair. He was thinking, would he have even dared. He felt her shoulders moving against his snug embrace with her darting fingers. Only in whisper-soft tones with sealed lips could he ask her of more. Though is mind and his mouth were in control, his body was not. Suddenly rushing, he clasped her waist. She gasped quickly and her breath stopped, understanding that his body was surely demonstrating the urgency that it had had with her in the past. He wanted to touch her all over, as a blind man might touch a sculpture, the better to see each curve of her with his hands.

She reached for the back of his neck, held his head as firmly as she could. She stopped him in place and snapped him out of his maddened state of passion. Only in a whisper he seemed to growl in annoyance and watched her. Hawke's mouth remained open but words didn't seem to propel out of this forgotten present.

"I don't want to do this now, in this way," she finally said, as if frightened, but firm in her statement.

Fenris almost stopped his breathing and stood there paralyzed rising only on his arms and still on top of her, seeming as though he realized something as he snapped out of his passionate drive. "Neither do I," he almost whispered before he finally breathed again.

He broke loose and lay to the side.

Hawke rose on her elbows and looked at him anxiously, as he brushed his hair away from his forehead and lay there as if he was embarrassed by himself. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Fenris fired back calmly, turning his head on the pillow to look at her.

He rose quietly and sat on the edge of the bed, pondering something. Then he looked to his left and came up completely to sit at the table near the window.

Hawke came up too and approached him quietly from behind, catching the ends at the back of his hair. "Your hair is longer."

"Is it? I haven't noticed," Fenris said calmly, playing with the blank pages of the journal on the table.

"You know long hair doesn't really suit your nose," Hawke said in a warm tone, playing childishly with his hair.

"I thought I'd cut it all off," Fenris replied with a hint of discomfort in his sighs.

"Nonsense," she fired back. She went for her old sword that leaned on the wall next to his. She stopped and looked at it as if something was wrong.

Vishatta. Where did he put it…

He looked into his pocket and sighed in relief within that he hadn't lost the red band. As Hawke turned back to look at him, he held her lucky charm with a raised hand a chivalrous nod, "I found myself in need of luck."

"Did it work?" she asked with a silvery grin, grabbing her sword and the ribbon to wrap it around the ring of her pommel again.

Fenris smiled shortly. "It seems that way."

"Well now," she said confidently and put the sword back next to his. "Don't they look positively charming like that."

"I meant to ask you," Fenris said calmly, as she came back behind his chair and drew out a knife.

"What did you want to ask me?" Hawke smiled as she started cutting the overgrown ends of his fastidiously white hair.

He played with the pages again, letting her cut the hairs with no protest. "Does it have a name?"

"My sword?" she asked. "Why would you think it does?"

"You seem like a Qunari with your sword. In fact, save for this particular incident, I have never seen you part with it."

She chuckled in approval, "I bet you wanted to throw it in the gutter when I went all crazy runaway clown mage."

He grinned shortly, "For a few seconds, it made all the sense in the world that I should do so. But then again, if I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Because I would have been the one to turn crazy homicidal? Yes, you are quite right about that."

Seconds passed in the quiet wind, but he didn't want to let himself go in the soothing trance she was putting him in. He pressed, "So what is her name?"

"What makes you think it's a  _her_?" she mused lightly.

"Isn't that the usual way one addresses to a sword?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't talk to mine," she said in amusement. "But I guess I understand. The narrow blade, the sharpness of the edges, the technical finesse and agility one requires to wield it."

"And do not forget the grace with which one should strike," Fenris said.

"But I should forget that they're phallic-shaped objects which men like to compensate with?" Hawke chuckled. "Seems to me swords are simply hermaphrodites. Agility aside, you need strength. Add that to the equation and what do you get?"

"Well we won't know until you say what it is called," Fenris mused back.

She sighed in amusement, "Fine. I call it Red Rain. Rayne, for short."

Fenris quickly chuckled. "Why? Is it raining blood?"

"You might think that, but no. Thought I'd put together my two favorite things in the world."

"So that's why you like to make it rain," he said, more for himself.

She went in front of him to shorten his bangs and examined his face. "Shocking, right? You thought there'd be more theatrics to the tale."

"I was hoping for some, regrettably," Fenris said calmly, trying not to flinch as she trimmed the front of his hair.

"Well, did you get to name your sword?"

"I haven't thought about it."

She grinned. "Think now."

He looked away and pondered on it. "Hm. This will sound foolish."

"What can sound dumber than Red Rain?" Hawke asked in amusement.

Fenris arched his eyebrow. "Gwendolyne, for instance."

"Gwedolyne?"

"I named my old sword for Varric's amusement."

Hawke laughed and went back behind him to finish up. "Well, be serious this time, dear man."

"Alright… Let's see," Fenris said and pondered on it for a while. He smiled shortly and sighed, "The Sword of Truth and Roses."

"For the Knight of Roses… and truth, apparently. Good choice," Hawke said in amusement. "Might not want to tell Varric though, else he'll never stop with the 'He's a tiger in heat with a rose in his teeth' jokes."

"You're right. I trust that you shall keep my secret," Fenris pretended innocently.

"You're secret's safe with me, oh mighty Calenhad," she said mockingly. "This asks for a quick baptism."

"With wine I hope. I'm not eager to spill any other red liquid anymore," Fenris said with a grin.

Hakwe sighed. "Ah, you're no fun."

"I think that's for the best," he said with a little smile.

As she finished cutting his hair, bringing back to its original length, she put the knife back in her pocket and ran her fingers through his hair to tidy it up. "There you go. Now you're pretty."

"What a relief," Fenris replied grumpily. "Now maybe the mirror won't break when I look into it."

"Well, let's try out the theory. Don't look at me like that, get up." She grasped his hand and dragged him to the high mirror behind them.

He flinched when he saw himself in the mirror. Flinched. He appeared to look at himself curiously as he stood there with Hawke behind him letting out her childish grin. For a moment, it seemed as though he was trying to capture that image in its fullness and preserve it. Perhaps he went through too many shocks these past few days and was not all that eager to ignore the possibility of loss.

He indulged himself then. He took full measure of their portrait, other images propelled out of time. He saw the components in him as a man: an immense soul, fearless, yet half in love with despair. Perhaps that is what she saw in him that first night in the courtyard. Without trying, she had given him her courage, her cleverness, her cunning and her honesty; perhaps she managed to transport an armory for him through their endless battle of wits. A mage of all things… She had done well. Her strength was complex and obvious. It was this first issue he took up with Hawke, his curiosity overwhelming him, for to scan the world for knowledge is often to rake in such tragedy that he abhorred it. He banished all this. He focused his gaze only on her beautiful tapering eyes.

She studied him, not suspiciously but in fascination, as she stood quiet behind him in front of the mirror. Mesmeric, but tired green eyes, skin slightly tanned from his travels, fastidious white hair stripped away of its natural colour, but still – it gave him a strange appearance of a "bad boy" in an intellectual way. He looked too serious for his frequently sarcastic demeanour. But the contrast it made with the green of his eyes and the black of his armour brought more focus and life to every short grin or grumpy face he made. It shed more light onto his rarely-changing expressions. It made them rich expressions.

He studied her too. Her clownish red hair gave her an aura of irresistibility. Of strength and cleverness, doubled upon by her general feistiness. Her lips were not rouged in any vulgar manner but deeply rosy by nature, and her long lashes looked like the points of stars around her radiant brave-child eyes. Somehow it was perfect, this portrait. Somehow the Maker did have a good sense of humor, wedding them to one another intentionally, to teach each other what trust meant, and the difference between good and evil in all forms. That they lay beyond that difference.

They held to a way of life which did not involve rituals, prayers, magic, well, not superficial sorceries. Virtue was embedded in character. That was the inheritance of true warriors, which Fenris and Hawke shared.

* * *

**May I take over?**

May I punch you in the face?

**Changing pronouns did not really help. Let me take over for a moment.**

Why? You're not angry anymore.

**And you're not drunk anymore. Let me take over.**

Bah. Fine.

**How come you yielded so easily?**

Thought I'd take Zevran's advice and let you be right once in a while. You know, so you won't cry inside like a little snowflake.

**Remind me again why I fancy you. Right now nothing comes to mind. Perhaps because of the irritating noise that makes up the whole of your persona.**

Because… I'm delightful? … Fenris? Hello? … Where did you – Oh damn you.

* * *

But she'd already gone deep into her own thoughts. I couldn't bear the invisible barrier she had set between us. I turned away rapidly, undeterred, lifting her hands until she stood beside me, and then I took her warmly into my arms. I kissed her lips, her old familiar perfume rising to my nostrils, and I kissed her forehead. And then I held her head tightly against my beating heart. For several long moments we remained locked together, and I covered her hair with small sacred kisses, her perfume crucifying me with memories. I wanted to endow her with protection against all things as sordid as myself. She backed away from me, finally, as if she had to do it, and she was a little unsteady on her feet.

I felt a wave of my own anguish of the long night before, when the utter vacuity of all religions and creeds could not help me as I waited and waited and flinched at the sight of every woman walking down the streets below. It struck me hard, that I couldn't find her, and the sheer effort of a good life seemed a fool's trap, and nothing more.

To see her now, alive and here with me, it gives architecture to a trivial moment, and seems so dire a confession. The words came out of my mouth with no reserve, "Trust in me, and I shall see that you never come to harm."

Hawke suddenly closed her arms around me, surprising me, holding me firmly and rubbing her cheek gently against my hair, and kissing my head. Silken, polished, gentle beyond words. She rested her head against my shoulder. "Fenris," she said. "There's no need to make haste with such promises."

I broke into laughter, rather than anger. "Hawke, you're deliberately taunting me. Why? Why do you do this?" I asked, as she lifted her head and finally looked at me.

"Now why do you ask questions you already know the answer to!" she said confidently, giving me a little smile. Why tell me and spoil all the fun. Of course. I held this hard effigy of the most spectacular and singular woman I had ever known or seen: I held it and this time heard the beating of her heart, the distinct rhythm of it. She was never one to put her trust in people who lived beside her only half-heartedly. She welcomed people, but did not truly let them in, not carelessly, not blindly. Ah, damnable little woman, seeing right through me, through my reserved and private anguish. Hers was perhaps bigger, barricaded by her confidence, her bone-hard posture and words. But how would I know? It would have spoiled all the fun.

"You are infuriating," I said rather calmly.

"Oh, I am," she laughed. "Maybe now you wish I had made that stunt proposal in front of my mother so you'd be forced to marry me and I would be forced to be stuck with you."

"No doubt if I had, you would have put me in an early grave," I said in amusement. "I would have been spared of all this."

"All of what?" she asked.

I shook my head and broke into soft laughter, only faintly touching her cheek and pulling away. "Never mind."

I went by the window and gazed at the midnight violet sky. "Oh, how spectacular is the simple night," I said.

"Do go on," she said, coming beside me. "I can never turn down a chance to hear your internal monologues."

"They're not very impressive," I murmured grumpily.

"I don't think you intend them to be," Hawke mused beside me. "Which makes them impressive."

"It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design and tranquillity," I said contemplatively. I turned my head to her. "All things follow their course."

"Care to follow me to the bed?" she asked with a devious grin. "My eyes are falling into my chest."

I turned around. It was lust shining in my eyes. Yet I checked it. In a soft voice, I confessed with a little smile, "Perhaps I should attempt to investigate before they are lost in there forever."

The colour flared in her face. She took delight in my blundered little joke. I looked at her, at her breasts, at her hips and then at her face. Ashamed and trying to conceal it. Lust.

"You could try, but I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's a big and complex maze. Beware of it, for it will drive you mad!" she said with plain confidence, rejecting me with no shame.

"You're right," I murmured in defeat, careless. "It seems now that it's better if I explore the lengths of this pillow; otherwise I'm ill-equipped at venturing into the unknown."

"Well now. Maybe I should go then," she said, couldn't-care-less posture. She turned around and went for the door.

I caught her hand, feeling like a child, but banishing all perceptions of this vulnerability. "Don't go."

She turned around with a scandalized frown. "What? You want to cuddle?"

Such rudeness. Careless masked femininity. I shook my head and sighed, "You're right. What was I thinking?" I grinned through my teeth. "Begone."

"Oh, fine, since you asked so nicely, I'll stay," she said defensively. Armand had been so right –she needed freedom of choice, she couldn't bear obstructions from liberty of thought, of actions, of anything. What I lacked was patience, driven by my own maddening force of desire.

This was not the case, my eyes said. This is what she understood.

Mine was more truthfully a need to drag her by the hand and sit her on the bed because she was such an infuriating defensive child. But I had already done that once tonight and it almost didn't end well… I banished this thought, swallowing my shame, and gave her an arrogant smirk as I gestured towards the bed, "After you."

"Let me guess. You do not mean to mock," Hawke said grumpily, as she sighed and walked towards the bed, sinking it, half-dead.

"Me? Never," I said arrogantly. I lay beside her, keeping the civil distance, devil that I apparently am. I sought to seem careless, though cunning attempts aside, I would not forget my manners.

Her eyes were closed. The lamplight was soft. What a lush and passive being she seemed to be, her hair cascading over the pillow, her skin flawless, her mouth half closed. I sat down beside her. I looked down at her as she slept there, easy at last, breathing as though she were safe. Slowly her eyes opened. She looked up at me. There was no fear in her. Indeed, it seemed that she was questioning something that wouldn't let her drift off to sleep.

"Out of your element, Fenris?" Hawke finally said with lifted, unimpressed eyebrows, as she turned to her side and watched me lay carelessly.

"Quite on the contrary," I said calmly. "I'm perfectly content at the moment."

"Hm. It's like you're drawing the distance from my homeland to yours," she said as she brushed her hand between the colossal space I intended to keep between us.

"You can come closer if you wish," I said carefully, turning my head to look at her. She shyly looked away. "No one is stopping you from venturing into foreign lands."

She turned and with the slowness of a dazed person, reached under the heavy pillows at the head of the bed. "So I should perhaps withdraw the dagger from under the pillow?" she asked mockingly.

"I am too tired to hurt you, even if I wanted to," I said wearily, my eyes half-closing.

"Well don't fret on account of me! Sleep!" she said carelessly.

I frowned shortly, protest and inconvenience alight all over my face. Ah, whatever. I had enough triumph this night to hold dearly without pressing anything further. I wasn't going to beg for affection. "Good night, Hawke."

"Good night," she whispered, amusement in her tone.

And so we went to our separate sleep, but not a minute passed and I felt her moving closer, clutching at my chest. She wrapped one arm around me and laid her head on me. I didn't say anything, pretending to be already sleep, but I did ignore my restraint and placed my right arm across her back, pressing her further against me. I heard her slow breathing like a murmur in the night. I opened my eyes for a second to remember this, lest I ever forget. I could hear my own heart. I could feel it beating against the richness of her red hair, and as I closed my eyes I feared only one thing in the whole world—that this bliss should not last.

 


	37. All Is Bright

Last night was despair, passion, ardency and fervor, just as much as it was understanding.

All was violent.

Morning came and things changed.

All was bright.

* * *

**The Fade**

Suddenly, there came above the hills a great fatal light. My eyes hurt unbearably. They were on fire. "My eyes," I cried and reached to cover them. Fire covered me. I calmed down quickly thereafter, when I realized it was merely a much brighter, hotter Sun that I had been used to halfway through living by the temperate-continentals of Ferelden up until the subtropics of Kirkwall.

I had followed Fenris to a strange land and spied on him there, telling myself that I would not disturb him, as I had done many times before.

Let me tell the story of that episode now, and then I promise I'll disappear. Beware of lots of humor and shenanigans in the afterward third-person narratives. This one isn't.

At a safe distance I had tracked him as he walked briskly in the sunlight, masking my thoughts as skillfully as he always masked his own. What a striking figure he made under the grand rainbow eucalyptus trees as he stopped again. I knew something about this… yes. They were both radiant, colorful, beautiful and useful. They were prized both for the colorful patches left by its shedding bark and for its pulpwood, which was used to make paper. Only in a drawing from a useless herbology book had I seen one though, and that was just dumb luck when I'd opened it as a child, for I first read "Herboobology" and thought it had naughty drawings in it.

I sensed a change in him almost at once. He carried his sword as always and he flipped it upon his shoulder nonchalantly. Strength he had plenty, but the nonchalance and "presentation" were a bit out of… context or character. Something wasn't right; I sensed it, yet it didn't seem much of an alarm for me at the time.

But there was a brooding to him as he walked; a pronounced dissatisfaction; and hour after hour passed during which he wandered as if time were of no importance at all. It was very confusing to me soon, to catch the idea that this was indeed, Fenris, walking, reminiscing, the image crumbling and resetting again and again. Now and then I did manage to catch some pungent image of his youth in the tropics, even flashes of a verdant jungle so very different from the wintry northern skies and lands of my mother country, which was surely never as warm. I had not had my dream of the tiger yet. I did not know what this meant.

Hmmm. I missed Mojo. Why was he not here, prowling this jungle with me?

It was tantalizingly fragmentary. Fenris's skills at keeping his thoughts inside were simply too good.

It seemed very charming to me, but mostly on account of the sweet warmth of the air around me, and the bit of jungle creeping down around the foreign structures, with its inevitable snaggle of banana leaf and Queen's Wreath vine. Ah, that vine. A nice rule of thumb might be: Don't ever live in a part of the world which will not support that vine.

Birds with feathers the color of the summer sky or the burning sun streak through the wet branches. Monkeys screamed as they reached out with their tiny clever little hands for vines as thick as hemp rope. Sleek and sinister mammals of a thousand shapes and sizes crawled in remorseless search of one another over monstrous roots and half-buried tubers, under giant rustling leaves and up the twisted trunks of saplings dying in the fetid darkness, even as they sucked their last nourishment from the reeking soil.

A thought came upon my mind –

Mindless and endlessly vigorous is the cycle of hunger and satiation, of violent and painful death. Reptiles with eyes as hard and shining as opals feast eternally upon the writhing universe of stiff and crackling insects as they have since the days when no warm-blooded creature ever walked the earth. And the insects—winged, fanged, pumped with deadly venom, and dazzling in their hideousness and ghastly beauty, and beyond all cunning—ultimately feast upon all.

There is no mercy in this forest. No mercy, no justice, no worshipful appreciation of its beauty, no soft cry of joy at the beauty of the falling rain. Even the sagacious little monkey is a moral idiot at heart.

That is—there was no such thing until the coming of man.

My blood froze amidst the hotness of the air, as the imagery settled in for once. The architecture, the contours, the weather, they all settled in. Colours settled in. I beheld, quite startled, the effigy of the perfect spitting image of Fenris, only he had… no markings. No Tevinter spiky armory, no…  _Andraste's sweet ass._ His hair was dark, coffee-coloured almost as he walked beneath the endless vines and punched them away nonchalantly, and in direct sunlight it almost burned auburn. It was a bit longer, but still he kept it all loose and in his face like the historical never-changing Fenris. Loose and tangled, as far as I could see.

Were the people here the best thing in this savage garden, warring as they have done so long upon one another? Or were they simply an undifferentiated part of it, no more complex ultimately than the crawling centipede or the slinky satin-skinned jaguar or the silent big-eyed frog so very toxic that one touch of his spotted back brings certain death – although how I knew this I couldn't remember - ?

Had it not been for the endless tan humans, elves and Qunari forever walking with cold, indomitable eyes past him in this strange-looking city hidden amidst the vast jungles, he would have looked like a young boy. But people startled him. He had an old man's inordinate fear of being struck down and hurt. He'd look cautiously, but a bit impatiently or resentfully, at the children running into him as they chased one another. Then he'd fall back into his thoughts.

I commenced my pacing again and followed him, pushing the thick springy vines out of my way.

On and on he walked, however, sometimes as if he were being driven, and on and on I followed, feeling strangely comforted by the mere sight of him at a cold distance from me or several feet ahead.

The sun was setting rapidly. Images changed again – better yet, they pulsated, transformed and vibrated. I couldn't concentrate and I felt as if I was going to fall. I wanted to catch my breath. It seemed as though we had been walking for a day.

I longed to see past the thickening darkness, and the shadows that shrouded the embracing hills. I longed to somehow possess a kind of preternatural hearing and catch the soft songs of the jungles, to wander with magical speed up the mountains of the interior to find the secret little valleys and waterfalls as only a conscious mage in the Fade could with very much effort and practice.

_Oh, shit._ Only now I realized I was dreaming. That and the fact that, as I rushed to catch up with him, he didn't seem to get bigger, but in fact, smaller. My breathing was purely somewhere lost in the imaginary, because I saw a child.

Fenris was that child.

He stopped right near a cave of sorts, and beyond I heard the loud chorus of a tropical forest. He looked back, to his left, to his right. Then again I saw the deep blue evening sky above me; I felt the breeze that was moving over me as smoothly as if it were water. All the fragrances of the green jungle assaulted my nostrils. The freshness was purely rhapsodic. I found it delicious and strange, and I knew it could only mean one thing: he was,  _we_  were in Seheron. In a second he was gone.

Damn it. He was gone. I caught a glimpse of a shadow entering the cave, but I couldn't seem to move. The opening was plain and pitch-black, as if by some ancient sorcery, darkness had actually come to life in a material sense and played the role of an impenetrable barrier- fence-gate- _whatever_. I wanted to go in anyway, of course, my willingness was almost repugnantly insistent, but something was holding me in place, or maybe I didn't know how to walk anymore. I couldn't move.

Take a step, what's so hard.

I couldn't.

My heart started pouncing and my veins froze again, although not even that could I feel properly. It felt like those times when you dreamt you were being chased but suddenly you couldn't run anymore; the irony being, that I was the chas _er._

Blasted.

* * *

**An hour before Sunrise,** **Casa Della Libertà Eterna,** _**Last day in Antiva City** _

Fenris awoke suddenly, having had that kind of annoying dream where one appears to fall into a pit and wake up with a shudder. He heard birds chirruping outside and felt the chilly breeze of the Antivan morning. He listened to the movement of the waters beneath the inn and all around it, and through the canals and into the sea. He blinked a couple of times, the imagery and nuances propelling back into a coherent frame. Images came to him, bits and pieces of dreams.

Nothing was substantial but Hawke. And Hawke was here. Back turned to him, sleeping like the dead, almost about to be crushed by his apparently tight embrace. The cascade of red hair under his chin brought back the familiar sweet smell. He brushed his cheek against it, as if to be certain it was real. Looking out the window, the sky had been stamped with the usual rosy and violet nuances of dawn. The sun was teasing the world still, underneath the horizon.

Indeed, it seemed the horrors and joys that overwhelmed him with so many shocks were but a prelude for their coming closer. A thunder could strike him now and he would probably repel it with all the power of his being, so he wouldn't be taken away from this moment. Ah, but how long before this will become just another dream? He feared. Forget hope. Forget thoughts. He tilted his head and rested it against her soft hair and clutched her waist tighter from the back. There was still time. He closed his eyes and dozed back to sleep.

**Moments later**

Isabela had always been shameless and with a pardon for everything. And why not? You take what you can get, and if you can get more than what life gives you – more like throws at you, a poor steak now and then to the starved and crazed dog –what's it to life to stop you? She was nosy when she wanted to, and very private when she needed to. She kept her doubts secret and moved on in fine tune with the filth and the wonders of a world set out to be unfair. Life is unfair. Simple as that. Crooked. Straighten it up to your preference, if you had the balls to.

But now that something happened to Hawke, she regretted the recent altercation with her. Of course, she considered her mind a bit too crazy even for her, much too pointlessly brave. Futile, to the larger scheme of things, because Hawke was more dead-set on taking care of her friends and innocent strangers, stray puppies and lost kittens, than ultimately herself; if stomachs didn't burn and growl from hunger, the girl would probably be dead by now.

Although a leader and a motherly, sort of guarding presence that she was to them all, she appreciated one thing in particular – she was the kind that let you stray as much as you wanted to, far away from her circle of security, but most times you wouldn't dare to cross it and venture into foreign spaces simply  _because_  she gave you the liberty to choose. It was for her and maybe everyone else a terrible contradiction. She welcomed and cared enough, but appearing to stick to her private business just the same and letting people jump and twirl and sway and stumble on their own if they so wished. Ah, now they sounded like children. But a fine stratagem in its intent, nonetheless, right? Points for that.

Like a true general, she did what she had to do, whatever she wanted to do. Had to and wanted. That's the thing.

Helping Isabela was –or at least had been – still something she wanted to do, although she gave up wondering as to why. There was no barrel, pile of rubble and lonely bush stretching from Darktown to Sundermount that Hawke hadn't stuck her head into for her sake. Of course, they hadn't found anything. Hawke wanted to do it, but didn't really appear to care. In the Hanged Man, when they would drink afterwards, she seemed as if it would always be normal if she just stood up and left suddenly, never to come back. What a contradiction, but still. Cunning and cleverness were things Isabela herself luckily possessed, and she couldn't help but guess that Hawke had already been stamped by death and cruelty enough to make her roughly immune to the most common desires.

Only in the courtyard of the palazzo-inn-casa-whatever they were staying in did Hawke lose her temper a bit and told Isabela to get out of her sight. It was still liberty of choice, which she imposed, though. But, just a thought – maybe she used that opportunity to unconsciously instruct Isabela to stay and look after Dorian while they were venturing in the belly of certain death. One could only imagine what sort of twisted ideas came into this woman's head every time she did something.

As much as she liked Hawke, for she was independent and wild just as she was, Isabela wasn't really hopelessly and irrevocably wed to her as Varric was. And Fenris, apparently. Ah, yes, Fenris was… well, he was hopelessly off limits now. No matter if he stayed with Hawke in boring, sexless, platonic  _whatever_ , one could blind and gag Isabela and she would still recognize a man in love when she saw one. Sometimes it was funny to see them struggle with their hidden emotions, but most times she feared for her own life… because The Hanged Man would one day surely crumble and collapse, burn or blow up from the sexual tension and the snarky way they went at each other's throats. It was simple. The Hanged Man would surely blow up someday, either because one of them exploded or because someone would set fire to it just to make them shut up.

Alas, whatever brooding that kept Isabela up and unable to sleep any longer, it made her get out of her room and long for a large cup of Antivan coffee. Antivan coffee soon to be turned Ferelden, if she found any rum about. She walked out of her room and strolled wearily along the hallway. She stopped suddenly, scrutinizing the door of Hawke's room. Why not check?

Locked. She wasn't back. She walked past it but stopped again as she realized she was out of coin. She pissed it all on drinks for two days straight to calm Dorian down from his crazed anguish in waiting for Armand to come back and fearing for his life.  _Time to borrow money from Hawke and tell her later_. She went back to the door and picked the lock with the swiftness of any self-respecting rogue.

Only when the door opened did she realize she had the wrong door. Fenris was there with his back turned and sleeping in the bed like a preserved, half-dead peaceful mummy. She immediately blocked the usual sounds she would have made in this situation and turned her head to close the door on her way out without waking him. She knew he had not slept at all, having looked after Hawke in a full half of Antiva City the day before, until Varric finally convinced him they would have had a higher chance to find her at the inn if she was – she had better be – still alive and well.

_Andraste's granny panties._ Her automatism clashed, her mind paralyzed, her eyes widened, and she turned her head back to the sleeping elf. He was glued to a woman in his sleep. Blue coat and red hair, that's as much as she made up. Oh, oh…  **oh.**

No stampede or cheetah in the world could have outrun her as she headed for the hills with such fiery speed. Correction: one particular hill called Varric.

"Varric, Varric, Varric!" she shouted rapidly as she came into the common dining rooms and almost tripped and fell on her face.

"Rivaini, Rivai-, ah sod it, your name's too long. Who put fairy-power in your drink?" Varric asked in surprise. He stood up from his chair and watched her catch her breath.

In-between panting, with a hand over her chest, she mumbled, "Feh… haw…bah… sleeh... tugh-"

"Fenhoebas-what?" Varric asked. "Are you having a stroke?"

"Lisshhen to meeh," Isabela muttered incoherently, hand over her heart.

"I'm trying to but you keep making no sense," Varric shouted.

She stood up straight again and shook her head rapidly. "Hawke is back and she's sleeping with Fenny."

"Bullshit," Varric scowled.

"Come see for yourself," Isabela shouted and heaved a palm in annoyance.

"If this is one of your tricks to have me away while the waitress pours a laxative in my soup, you can kiss that pretty head of yours goodbye," Varric threatened, his eyes narrowing. "I'll have it ripped off."

"And how exactly will you do that? Hire the Crows you're running from?" Isabela arched an eyebrow and shrugged, "Get a ladder?" she asked meanly.

"There's at least one taller person than me in this city who would do it for free," Varric muttered back angrily, subtly meaning either Fenris or Armand.

"Are you going to keep bitching at me like a princess or are you gonna come see for yourself?" Isabela asked impatiently.

"After you, Siren Pants. Oh wait, you have no pants," Varric mused as they took off for the upper level.

"And yet you do you're still the closest one to resembling a fairy princess," Isabela fired back.

"I'm sexy and I know it," Varric mused cockily.

* * *

**Meanwhile, upstairs…**

Hawke awoke with her usual careless arm and leg stretching and mmm-ing to no end. She had already forgotten what it felt like to wake up in a  **bed**. Her smile of satisfaction would have reached Kirkwall, if not for her elbow that had outrun it and reached Fenris's nose. His short growl at the disturbing force and his tightening clutch at her waist woke her up completely.

"Shit. Oh. Ah… Top of the morning to ya," Hawke said quickly… as quickly as she wanted to hit herself in the face for being such a smooth one in these situations.

No adorable puppies and kittens in the world would have ever outdone Fenris as he muttered the softest possible "mm" as he opened his eyes. Dark eyes that now became fiercely bright as he looked at her. She was smiling awkwardly and didn't quite know what to do with her hands.

To her surprise, Fenris smiled at her so knowingly, with a sudden quiet air of triumph. "Look who decided they would love to venture into foreign lands."

She coughed and made him look at their positions.  _He_ was holding her, not the other way around.

"That is not how I remember it last night," Fenris fired back unyieldingly.

"So you  _were_  pretending to be asleep," Hawke said in an accusatory tone. "You're such a snake."

"Keep trying to make yourself pass as perfectly innocent," Fenris said with an all-knowing grin. "Meanwhile, I will go back to sleep, if you don't mind. I have already started dreaming halfway through your sentence anyway."

"Har-har," Hawke replied grumpily. She broke away from his grip and rose from the bed. "Well. I want to get up." She put a hand over her forehead and felt the wave of fever.

"Has your intoxicated mind suddenly thought it would be a legendary accomplishment to compete with the Sun in who rises first to glory and takes over the world?" Fenris asked sarcastically, rising up on his elbows and rubbing one eye. "Do you wager the gods will give you a legendary prize?"

"If the prize is you getting out of my face – sure!" Hawke fired back grumpily, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"… And we're back to the stinging," Fenris muttered wearily, rubbing his eyes still.

"Well I'm  _waspish_ like that," she mused childishly.

Fenris was exhausted. Half-asleep, but half was enough to fire back with at least half his wit.

"And clearly you take pride in your hard work of bestowing your cruelty upon my world," he said sarcastically with his eyes closed, mocking the busy bee turned an evil stinging wasp.

"Well, some take delight- oh!" She stopped and smiled, turning her head to him while sitting on the edge. "There's this old Ferelden folk song that goes like," she paused to clear her throat and sang in a perfectly tuned and strong womanly voice, "Now there's some takes delight in the carriages a rolling, and some takes delight in the hurley or the bowlin'. But I takes delight in the juice of the barley…And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early!" she continued with raised hands. "Mush-a ring dum-a do dum-a daaaah."

Moment of silence for the fallen. Fenris wasn't impressed. Go figure…

"Pam, pam, pam, pam," she finished while banging her palms on her knees. "Well, look who's really going whack fall the daddy-o."

He opened his eyes. "Whack-a-what?"

"Never mind," Hawke said in amusement. "This particular fair maiden doesn't seem to get my drift this fine morning bright and early."

"And now I'm a woman," Fenris said with sharp disdain.

"Hey, you call me forest troll and I call you fair maiden and you're still the one to bitch and complain?" she demanded.

"You do make an excellent point," Fenris said calmly, which could only mean shortly thereafter a pretentious little snarky comment would follow. He put a hand over his heart first, as if to make it more dramatic. "My sincere apologies, Bob."

"Apology rejected, Genevieve," Hawke stung back calmly. She rose from the bed and turned to look at him.

"You burn me with those words," Fenris replied with eyes fully closed, his tone of inconvincible honesty.

Hawke grinned widely and shrugged, "Well, if you didn't have me to rake you over the coals now and then, there wouldn't be any fire in your life at all."

How very true, yet she didn't know it to be so.

"Dragons… dragons, everywhere," Fenris muttered calmly to himself, staring in blank now towards the ceiling. Yes, an allegory most refined. This was truly the Dragon Age.

"Ah, yes. Big, mighty, mystical creatures destroying other people's lives on purpose, this causing havoc around all around the world and bringing it to the very pits of despair," she said subtly in sarcasm. Her tone then came very calm, "That can be rather annoying."

"It depends how you look at it," Fenris said calmly in his weary daze.

"There is more than one? Do tell," Hawke said eagerly.

He rose on his elbows and considered it for a few seconds. He managed to open only one eye. Then he explained, one-eyed, "Well, you see. You could look at it at as if these seriously misunderstood creatures are boiling and preying on the world around them, bringing it to the very end of its days. But one must never forget, that there lies a difference. A difference so easy to forget."

She thought he was going to end in his predictable mean punch line. This wasn't it.

He rose his palm and explained further, one-eyed, "And it is tangled up in the illusion that they are consciously and deliberately evil. But those that do, those are the Old Gods. Nothing to do with actual dragons," he dismissed with his palm, "but they wear their garments in their image when they do emerge from the earth as the so-called Archdemons."

"And?" came her impatient tone.

Fenris sighed and stretched his explanation, "And so it is thus misinterpreted that all dragons are cruel and evil. It is a fallacy by appearance, as well as by the natural need of living beings to form convincible and consoling inductions." He gestured with his palms up. "Stretching out the truth to lessen the burden of not knowing everything, if you will. "

"So you're saying…" Hawke shrugged with lifted eyebrows.

Fenris remained a statue, staring in blank with his one open eye. He appeared to have lost his train of thought. "I don't… quite remember my original point," he confessed.

"You're such a joy," she muttered in a pretend-sweet tone. Then she sighed and took a seat back on the bed. "Ah, let me clean up the mess inside your head."

Very true, she had already been doing that for a good amount of time. She didn't know it to be true.

"So dragons blow fire and destroy the world and they're annoying," she started while gesturing and looking up at the ceiling. "Then dragons are not actually evil, but the Old Gods who make do with their masks."

He lay back flat on the bed in complete exhaustion as he nodded and mumbled "Correct."

"They look and fight and do almost everything just the same, but only the Old Gods are purposely and consciously, and all the more powerfully able of actually bringing an apocalypse."

"Affirmative," came again Fenris's placid tone with another nod.

"So you're saying I'm not really purposely trying to mock or hurt you, but sometimes I may accidentally do it because it is in my nature to be mean and that's automatically where my tone usually goes whenever I open my mouth?" Hawke asked very rapidly.

"You are harmless," Fenris said with a smirk that had all the traceries of a warm expression because of his closed eyes.

In truth, now he remembered, he started something related to that idea, but ended up trying to make a metaphor about how some mages are truly evil and some can be truly good. Paying her a compliment with an obvious reality he had put honest and stubborn work in trying to discard for a vaguely long time. That was quite an effort in itself. Though when did he suddenly become so utterly resigned from his past endeavor? Alas.

She quickly rose from the bed, standing proudly atall.

"I am quite dangerous, in fact," Hawe said with a devilish grin. She was not pertaining to magic.

Both his eyes opened. "Are you now? Well, by all means –prove it," Fenris gestured arrogantly. He was not pertaining to magic.

"Now why would I do such a thing!" came her proud voice. Suddenly a flame came up in her hand, but not as lively as her girlish smile. "I hate to hurt you."

He raised an eyebrow with all the fullness of nonchalance. Fenris was unimpressed.

With a quickness of a genuinely driven person, she launched the fireball next to his head, purposely misfiring. He dodged it in a second, of course, the fire dying out in the air, and he looked back at her **without** some pretentious scowl of inconvenience.

Fenris let himself fall back on the pillow while muttering arrogantly, "Well... thank god for  _that_."

Oh, good. Not pertaining to magic, but using magic as pretense. Yes, oh, she was so mighty dangerous.

Hawke understood his subtle mockery to mask his inconvenience. Suddenly the irony became all the more sweeter all with her drawing up that historical pretentious scowl of inconvenience, and added to the charm a little  _hmph_.

After several seconds of silence in which he seemed to have a thought in his mind and repeatedly trying to kill it, he soon decided he could make do with play out of character today and open up.

"I'm not made out of glass," he replied with an edge.

"No. You're made out of skin," she said flatly with a smile, as she gestured. "And hair, and muscle, and blood, and internal organs and whatever other things that can be irrevocably torn apart."

The soul, he suspected. He opened his eyes again and rose on his elbows.

"I assure you. I am quite sturdy," Fenris said rather sweetly.

"I assure you. I am quite hopeless," Hawke retorted with a satirically innocent smile.

"Ah, good. I was afraid hope was feeling overly ambitious today all with trying to make a special effort," Fenris said sarcastically.

The corner of Hawke's lips went rapidly crooked and she crossed her arms. "Well I see strength isn't making much of an appearance today either."

_Yes, mock my utter exhaustion out of trying to find you in half of Antiva. More the fool I, so it seems._

Ah, he didn't mind. He was glad to partake in their usual dance of snarky comments. Even if she was a queen of evasion, he was content with his little victory from last night. Even if she had not truly said the words he had secretly hoped for and had buried somewhere deep in his soul, he was still positive with delight; noted, despite feeling stupid and remarkably appalled by himself that in a fit of crazy passion, that had seemed to obliterate all his logic, he had inexplicably and with no reserve said,"I am yours." To say such abominably idiotic words - better never than late, one could only hope. Unfortunately to his evermore ironic fate, he had chosen in reverse.

He'd met Hawke on a Tuesday. He'd kissed her on a Friday.

Two and a half years later.

He sighed. That seemed like a fair triumph, right? Only two and half more years before she would allow anything else, he suspected. Double that amount of time upon giving up her heart for him, he suspected.

Yes, her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high. As well as other parts; he stood corrected. He sighed again. How long before he'd manage to tear down those high walls? Tearing down was nothing. He wanted to viciously crush them to bits. There was still time.

Yet, unbeknownst for a long time, he had not understood that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and were afraid to express their own feelings to you. Hawke was not the case. Hawke was worse than that; sarcasm was her  _first_ choice of weapon, and her second, third and twenty-fifth, and in doing so she quickly got him infuriated with her. Her last resort being, of course, a perfectly precise and graceful punch or sword thrust in your face. If she had strong feelings for him, this might have been the case. Only a matter of time. Yes, there was still time. He was rather grateful for that little equation.

Ah, perhaps she was a lady. After all, he had to be the judge of that. Be that as it may, truth would have it that he was not only a good judge of character when it came to most people, but an even greater judge of himself. He was no ladykiller.  _Shocking,_ he thought.

She, instead, could outdo any scary black widow in the dark arts of killing him as a man with a fancy with each passing day while her walls were up so damn high. He had managed to climb at least a little, rather quickly. One must surely give her credit merely for not also throwing some grenade in his face in order to make him fall off of it. And if that dramatic scenery wasn't enough, it just added to the charm that one thought he held in his head, that if he was the so-called Knight of Roses, she was the Queen of Thorns.

And she was too proud to be a queen.

Perhaps he was too cowardly to be a knight.

Well, regal features aside, she deserved to have a good and safe life; one he could never give her. That was something that had haunted his mind and made him equally wanting to pull away from her as much as he wanted to be with her. Protection from any danger, that what was more important for him. He could do that. He could attempt to. The only thing he wasn't certain of was if protecting her was perhaps made best by him completely disappearing from her life or remaining there to look after her himself on a very regular, strong, full basis. He could not do it in moderation any longer. Actually this was not called moderation in this case. It was called doing things half-heartedly. And he was surely a man that had never made friends with doing anything half-heartedly.

Crucified between these two thoughts, never did he feel so curiously bitter. Not that she needed to be protected, she would have said. After all, she had risen from nothing and made a life for herself in the sad little city of Kirkwall.

Ah, yes. He was a man half in love with despair. And Despair was staring at him in the eye all dressed in fine bright garments with a thick cascade of red hair and an even redder soul. Yes, he completed by being half-infuriated at it on the other side.

Yet even so, despite this shameful state of affairs and the bitterness that afflicted his soul, a lonely, persistent thought did manage to pester his mind.

Just as he knew the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arousal might have pleased it –now he was squeezing dirty thoughts in his internal monologues, how wonderful – so he knew that Hawke was obliged to be stuck with him despite her everlasting defenses. Gold was inviting, and so was nobility, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it.

She had less choice than the sun.

"Sorry. Mechanical reflex," she mused childishly. "Truly not my intent."

"Of course," he muttered back and gave her a little smile. "Yet every time it's with great success."

"Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success," Hawke recited knightly.

"Well, at least you've got one of those covered," Fenris said meanly with a grin.

"Of course," Hawke said confidently, but her smile died shortly thereafter and was reborn in the fullness of a scowl. "Wait… which one?"

"Oh, I would not dare disclose such facts," he played arrogantly with half-closed eyes. "It would make me seem ungentlemanly."

"King of semantics," she muttered calmly. Her smile was full of joy. "Back with the insults it is then."

His whole time together with Hawke suddenly flashed before his eyes. Again, and certainly not the last time, he conceived that her moods and fortunes somehow reflected his own. Which moods and fortunes you might ask? Cascades over cascades of big, gigantic, massive, gargantuan flows of sarcasm and mean comments pouring over the slow-growing garden of their friendship. Yes, surely one might think these purely fantastic waves of stinging would have utterly and completely drowned the flowers before they had ever really bloomed, but no. Theirs was a garden full of inconceivable wonders and inexplicable lunacies like that. It had been clear from the very beginning that they didn't really –or perhaps had no interest to– function within the normal laws of nature.

What came to mind was the beginning of their first conversation in the Hanged Man, morning after they met.

* * *

**Autumn of 9:31 Dragon, The Hanged Man**

"So, you run and you hide, is that it?" she asked calmly, when Varric went to buy the drinks.

"Not anymore," he replied insipidly, his elbows catching roots on the table.

"Now you just hide," she said flatly with a smile. "That mansion seems the perfect pit to crawl and die in, after all."

He pressed his lips in annoyance. "As a slave I used to have a remarkably distinct lack of initiative, but now that I met the one truly remarkable mage in all of Thedas _,_  I think I am beginning to set an equally distinct personal goal."

Hawke frowned; she didn't understand. Her eyes did sparkle shortly thereafter and brought back the air of joyful mockery to defend herself from being that one, single clown mage in all of Theds. "Oh, yes, how true this is. I did say you would be the great humble pain my pretentious clownish magical ass. How's that going for you?"

Not a day had passed and they were already snarkity-uppity with each other.

"I'm fairly ambitious," he shrugged.

It was surprising that he was beginning to acquit himself none too badly in the use of the sentimental and picturesque language which was called  _wit_.

"So apart from that fierce drive and distinct ambition to bitch at me, do you have any other interests or hobbies?" she asked while playing with the red band wrapped around the ring of her pommel.

Fenris considered this for a minute, watching her as she played. "I enjoy the arts of swordsmanship," came his flat-toned statement.

Hawke leaned over the table and asked, her voice changing curiously. "You fence?"

"Not exactly," Fenris drawled, slightly arching an eyebrow. "I prefer freestyle."

To this day, she did not know if he hadn't realized what he was saying or if he had deliberately intended it as a subtlety.

"What about you? What do you do?" He needed to ask questions, draw her out. He needed to find out all the information that he could, for his curiosity was peeking horribly inside as to what sort of depraved calamity this woman in front of him was. Quick-thinking, calculcated, rather excellent in battle. But she was a mage. He stood corrected; his curiosity was howling inside. His voice sounded strong and smooth, but his hands were a bit shaky and he put them in his lap so she couldn't see.

"I prey on innocent villagers and terrify little children," she said with a nasty smile, mocking his 'viper in your midst' comment. "And sometimes when I'm feeling  _really_  evil, I read books or paint."

Several minutes later he proceeded to interrogate her again. Her brother had sat down at the table. He didn't seem to notice.

"So, that is where you all live?" Fenris asked a bit contained. "It's rather – " She arched an eyebrow, so his voice lowered and stiffened, and his face launched into awkwardness as he finished, "small."

"Oh no, that is just our Satinalia house," Hawke muttered with tones and smiles of unconvincing joy and tranquility. "We have a house for every day of the year."

"It is rather small, though," Carver said with a sigh. "Not very practical, y'know. You sleep in the same tiny room, eat at the same tiny table and breathe the same tiny amount of air in the same tiny house as your sister does for very longhalf of the day, when it just so happens that the other equally long half you spend working with that same  _tiny_ sister," he finished with narrowed eyes pointed at Hawke.

She appeared not to have heard him and finished drinking her pint with ease. Then she said, "Emphasis on the tiny," and pointed with her head somewhere down south of her brother.

"As tiny as your brain it is then," Carver muttered back and took an angry sip.

"Well now that is an impressively witty way of paying both me and you a compliment of which only one side can be true!" she uttered back joyfully.

Carver resolved to ignore her and continued complaining to Fenris in a reminiscing tone, "We have a lonely little scrubbing brush you see. Never been used a day since we got it."

"Kind of like Gamlen's only brain cell," Hawke said meanly.

"And not unlike his cheese at all," Carver added grumpily. "It magically disappears way before breakfast in terms of matter, but in terms of smell… beware your nostrils, 'cause it resides forever." He shook his head. "For-eh-ver."

"Just like the dirty clothes… multiplying like rabbits, because that's what they apparently like to do when I'm not around," Hawke said with narrowed eyes to her brother.

"Don't be an ass, Sister," Carver mumbled sharply.

"Well, that's a little bit difficult to accomplish, isn't it?" Hawke retorted nonchalantly. "I mean, unless you'd be so kind so as to paint me with black and white stripes, then I'd be a zebra!"

He listened to all that – fairly amused at her jokes, though he wouldn't admit it – but he was in deep discomfort. Finally, one thing that made him smoothen for once was a good amount of time later after Anders joined the table and had already begun his hot-heated revolutionary speeches to him about how mages deserved the same amount of freedom as he did, to which of course he fired back with his own sharp arguments and flat explanations about the true nature of mages who had enough power to obliterate all the hope of his race of ever living properly. Oh, so you are a hypocrite, because you lived under obstruction of liberty and yet you don't wish mages to have the same privilege … and then it all went down-hill from there, of course.

Hawke did not join in their fight, but rather listened with a brow arching up towards Heaven and perhaps pleading for her own salvation from the impossible demonic bloodlust scorching at the table. The metaphor was not very far away from reality.  _He_  was, in a way, impossible. Anders was, in a way, demonic. The fiery pits of hell in their tones were, in a way, filled with bloodlust and scorching. And Hawke, in the one and only way, was sitting at the table.

Several of minutes later characterized solely by the words stated above, Anders went for the bar to order another round of drinks because Hawke pointed it out in a low tone all of a sudden just when the two men were about to jump at each other's throats. As soon as he disappeared, Fenris sighed quietly in annoyance.

Hawke picked up on that, of course, but what truly obliterated his already-historical inconvenience with her was when she leaned back against the wall and said, "Don't waste your breath on him. Explaining anything to that one?" She sighed and accentuating the words in grump, "It's like trying ta' slap the dumb off a retard."

That was the first time he had ever smiled at her, without realizing until after it had happened. She didn't seem to have noticed either.

Of course, their joined annoyance at Anders had quickly turned out to be lacking in character of some dire or ultimately separating argument for Hawke and Fenris to get along. It was as though this mutual apathy towards a singular creature had never even existed.

They'd met at the Hanged Man, bitch at each other a bit softly, head off to do jobs together, bitch at each other with a bit more edge to their tones, then when they finally returned to the Hanged Man after a long day's work of thorough bitching at each other, they bitched some more.

For instance, he remembered one lovely day that only Hawke could make it seem as an oxymoron in less than three seconds of meeting each other.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time, The Hanged Man**

She came by his table that one lovely day lost in the numerous set of all the other lovely days, as any other. "So, what are you doing today?"

Fenris was drinking his ale quietly and calmly muttered, "Nothing."

"You did that yesterday," she said with a smile.

Upon taking another sip, came his forever earthbound tone. "I wasn't finished."

"Jeez, who pissed in your breakfast this morning?" she asked in amusement.

Fenris's eyelids fell halfway and calmly said, "Stop talking."

"But then how will you stop listening to me?" she asked sarcastically. "You could make do with ignoring me right now."

"I'm certainly thriving in that fantastic alternate dimension," Fenris said flatly and drank away nonchalantly.

"You do have a distinct lack of ambition then," Hawke said grumpily. How could he even attempt to pretend she was not there, all hair, and eyes, and breasts and –

Loud. More than once did the tragedy occur that Fenris would sleep in his mansion, perfectly unperturbed and in peace for once, almost mummified in his blankets, and then he would be suddenly woken up by hearing her loud shouts of desperation after her misplaced armour or  _whatever_ all away from her house to his.

She was loud even when she whispered. Not because her voice was always loud, but more importantly her presence was. All, all… all of her.

"I've never imagined I would want to gag someone so early in a conversation," Fenris replied back in sheer, but calm annoyance. The worse his insults became, the more it meant he was defending himself from all of her. Speaking of loud and gagging, that was actually how he had the idea to gift her the now legendary Magical Ball of Everyone's Fortune.

"What DID you eat for breakfast? Bitch Flakes?" Hawke demanded in controlled outrage.

"I've had snappier comebacks from a bowl of stew," he muttered grumpily as he sipped from his drink.

She sighed and leaned on the wall near his table, "I admire your hard work in offending me, but take a break once in a while. Live, breathe, crack a … no. Better that you don't."

"What now?" Fenris asked curiously.

Hawke rolled her eyes. "Smile."

"No," Fenris said insipidly, eyes dark and mean locked onto hers.

"It wasn't a command. It was more of a suggestion," Hawke corrected with haste.

"I humbly reject your suggestion," Fenris said in tones of unconvincing chivalry.

She sighed. "See that's where you're mistaking. You don't have to try so hard in firing at me," she said with a smile and stretched her arms. "Because the truth is the only thing that's offending me is your face."

A ghost of a smirk came upon his face before he rolled his eyes. "The feeling is mutual. Speaking of which – talk to me when I'm drunker. You will be damn good-looking then."

That was not really the way he spoke to her though. That last sentence had all the strength and abruptness of a quickly crumbling elf, falling deep into the ale of his own denial. Not only was she loud and all there – her presence, her voice, her gorgeous hair, her big tampering eyes, her extremely womanly body, and sadly, her personality – but he couldn't seem to get her out of his head.

"Speaking of which, I would slap you for that pretentious comment, but I don't want to make your pretentious face look any better," Hawke fired back with a laugh and pretended she wanted to slap him as she sat down at the table with him.

She locked her uppity gaze at him.

It annoyed and enchanted him.

"Oh, you just can't keep your hands off of me, can you?" Feris asked with a smirk.

"Yep. I'm quite taken with you. I think about you all the time when you're not with me and I just feel this urgent need to- to-," she pretended grumpily and shook her head while gesturing with her fist. "Damn, I can't quite put my finger on it."

"I think of you when I'm lonely too," Fenris said without looking at her. He took another sip from his ale. "Then I am content to be alone."

How insanely talented they were at telling each other the truth in the tones of mean and tones of bark.

"You sound reasonable... time to up my medication ," Hawke said grumpily and took his pint to drink from it.

"Pfteh," Fenris muttered in annoyance. "Drunken witch."

She dropped the pint with a loud bang on the table as she finished drinking her cocktail of nonchalance. "I've been called worse by better."

* * *

"Never mumble some sarcastic shit to somebody who can obviously fuck you up," Varric used to say. Well now, obviously they had both secretly and solemnly swore in their mind – in those dire few seconds after his impertinent mage accusations when they first met – that this was a challenge worthy to take on. And set on fire. And throw alcohol in afterwards. And some combustion grenades for decorative purposes.

Yes, they were both terribly stubborn. Life was not fair, it simply was a bit fairer than death. Death was like a woman on her period that, as far as he came to understand, consequently needed to get whatever she wanted whenever and however she wanted to – or to hell with all the quiet and peace. Yes, Death was stubborn. And neither of them feared death.

After all, battles shared were battles won. Right from the start, in her eyes, Fenris was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to suddenly kill him. Thus, when she had that much in common with someone, she couldn't help but like him a little.

Darting back to the bright and shiny present, he resolved to snap out of his massive brooding and remember what she last said. "Back with the insults then." Ah, yes.

"Whatever makes you happy," he said nonchalantly, lying back on the bed as if he were destroyed by exhaustion. "Ugh." His tone was flat. "I am dead."

"Dear lunatic, whatever put you in an early grave?" Hawke asked in pretend-amazement.

His eyes were closed, but he grumped with the same constant talent. "You."

She quickly raised her eyebrows.

He put a weary hand over his face. "Looking for you into every gutter and barrel in half of Antiva City – to be more specific." She encircled the bed and went by his side, watching him.

"Only half?" she mused lightly with a smile.

"Halfway through I stopped and asked myself how I would feel if I were in your shoes." Then he grinned deviously and arched an eyebrow. "Then I realized I would have liked to be thought a lesson."

Hawke raised her eyebrows and grinned flirtatiously. "And here I thought you promised you'd give me a thorough disciplining with a more physical approach."

Fenris brushed his hair fastidiously away from his face. "Ah, I'd forgotten about that. You are quite right, though." He rose only on his elbows and smirked. "With your reckless and impulsive behaviour, no doubt you should have spent more time over someone's knee."

"Are you inclined to volunteer?" she asked playfully.

"Please," he said meanly, his voice the very sound of rolling eyes, and dismissing her with a grimace. She grimaced back mockingly, but shortly after, he reassumed his arrogant smirk. "Do I have a choice? One could hardly call it volunteering when it seems all the existing and invented gods from all possible religions and creeds are weeping, screaming and thrashing," he gestured in-between, "sending thunders from the skies as they do so, pleading and begging for someone to do it."

"Ah, right. You're truly without faults, aren't you?" she asked musingly while crossing her arms. "Mythologizing yourself already as a cruel victim of fate turned suddenly into a hero overnight." She started pacing and gesturing mockingly with joy. "Hurtled into the chaos that I bring on this world with my impossible persona, and there you are," she stopped and stretched her arms, "the mighty Fenkis McBraveheart coming to forever leave the burn of his Mighty Palm of Holy Judgement over my impertinent buttcheeks."

Calm, joyful sarcasm. Good sign.

"Well, it is not a duty for the faint-hearted," he said arrogantly and grinned at her with half-lidded eyes. "And such an imperative duty it is."

Wait, why was his tone so…? Holy Mother of… or better yet Santo cazzo di Madre… to better fit the scenery. She froze for several too many seconds, wondering if she should pinch herself and see if she didn't happen to be dreaming. That was not sarcasm. That was  _not_ sarcasm, was it? For the first time  **ever** , and for all intents and purposes, Fenris flirted with her –deliberately  _and_ correctly. Suddenly, she wondered what exactly changed. Alas, her mind was on strike and the world went on. It seemed a good time to stop staring at him with an idiotic look of disbelief and say something.

"I… uh…" she stuttered, her throat stiffening. Maker's breath, whatever came over her? She felt completely disarmed for once, for no apparent reason. She felt like a shy little girl, suddenly clumsy and awkward, with her tongue crawling in a cowardly box of unjustified shame.

"You- uh?" Fenris demanded with a dark, piercing look and a quiet air of masculine superiority.

_PLEASE go back to the insults. Just one little, stupid, even unoriginal snarky comment. A small '_ Hey! Look into the mirror and, all ye proud people of Kirkwall, behold the laughing-stock of half of Antiva's well-trained assassins, the impossible clown mage dressed in clothes gayer than Senechal Bran's pretentious risen eyebrow' _. No? Is that too much to ask? Maker's bloody breath, what in the dreaded pits of the Void is with me this morning?_

"I am inclined… to… endorse… with your… perspective… of things," she mumbled. A wild comparison, but almost regrettably accurate in terms of how she felt she looked like, was that she behaved like a psychotic noble half-dying in seizures at the cruel fate of an untreated case of syphilis. Remarkably common and pathetic way to die between the nobles, 'twas true. Seneschal Bran was first on her secret wishlist. No doubt, unbeknownst to the public eye, the man returned her feelings with the same amount of undisclosed joy.

Fenris arched an eyebrow. "Are you… having a stroke?"

"No, I'm just being sarcastic," Hawke lied quickly. "And tired." Let that sentence be at least half-true and the Maker could frown and bark later.

"You are always sarcastic," Fenris muttered quietly.

She pressed her lips. "Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep," she mused.

His eyebrow remained up. "Be that as it may, what I meant was that the nature of your statement which you allegedly deem as," he gestured quotation marks, " _sarcastic_ , did not really match your tone."

"I decided I should leave people to guess the nature of my statements without giving away so many helpful hints," she smiled with a shrug.

"Without a matching tone, you would sound like an idiot," Fenris said rather calmly.

"I don't mind. Thinking I'm an idiot gives people something to feel smug about," Hawke said with a wide grin. He was probably put in the pile of those people. "Why should I disillusion them?"

Fenris gazed at her flatly. "Why don't I believe you?" he asked with half-lidded eyes, an obvious edge in his voice.

"Well who died and made you Lord Seeker of Truth?" she asked meanly and crossed her arms. She was not grumpy or angry. Good sign.

"I do not truly know," he said, and cupped his chin. "All I saw were the purple velvety boots of the person in question, when I bowed knightly and the honorary title had been bestowed upon me sword-on-shoulder as the rite of chivalry commonly goes." Her eyebrow was reaching the heavens as he said it. He smirked at her and shrugged, "What? You've heard what I named my sword."

"Half of that name fits. What do roses have to do with this fantastical scenario?" asked Hawke, pacing to and fro as if she was a Guard-Captain interrogating a suspect.

"They are purely decorative," Fenris said calmly. "Like your sarcasm."

She grinned. "And here I was thinking you were a bit  _slow_  like the time it takes for a rose to bloom, what with so much asking and not knowing anything," she said with half-lidded eyes.

… Ah, that smile, which was undoubtedly a pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly little phrase had a scratch lurking in it. Which was always the case.

This Fenris resolved to forever hold in his soul. It was her charm. It was her aura. Yes, it was her soul. Fearlessness and creativity in pure form, and converted into sarcasm and wit for the outside world to better understand.

He pressed his lips and gave her a smile. "Exactly my point."

"The Knight sure does like his pretty delicate courteous maidens with the sense of humor of a dining table," she muttered.

"Why, aren't you the well-informed one about the Knight's secret fancies this fine morning?" he asked mockingly, deep flat tone nonetheless.

"The only thing in that sentence that's correct is  _morning_ ," she said and crossed her arms again. "So much for the truth part of your honorary title."

Fenris chuckled briefly. "Well I hear one does not accomplish much by using the truth in the business of chasing pretty delicate courteous maidens."

"Good thing I'm not a pretty delicate courteous maiden," she said confidently.

His grin grew devilish. "Good thing indeed." He closed his eyes again with nonchalance. "Yes, you are about as delicate as the titanic blow of a mighty hammer and as courteous as the savage battle cries of barbarian conquests." He weaved his hand dismissively, eyes still closed. "Thus it is automatically assumed that you are out of my area of interest."

_Blasted, I should've seen that one coming. Cheap victory, Fenris. Cheap victory._

"Oh, why aren't you a big load of crap this fine morning," Hawke said meanly.

"Indeed, it is a fine morning," Fenris said flatly, waving.

"Such rudeness, Sir," Hawke mused. "Why must you wound me?"

"Believe me, sometimes that seems to be the only thing in the world which makes perfect sense to me," Fenris muttered, everlasting grump in his flat tone. "Consider it a necessary evil."

"A little too soon to already be joking about that," Hawke said with a crooked smile.

Kaffas. Of course… how could he forget. He was joking out of context. He didn't mean to muse about what happened the night before, when he brutally assaulted her in his cruelly idiotic fit of murderous rage. His face grew dark and his smile died in an instant. "I apologize for that." He swallowed heavily, reality hitting him square in the jaw. "Truly I can't begin to-"

"You know I'm a firm believer in letting everyone follow their natural course of thoughts and choose to make their own decisions and yadda yadda –don't get me wrong, but…" Hawke started abruptly and exhaled. She raised her finger at him and bent forward. She locked her firm, decisive eyes onto his startled, carefully listening ones. "If you so much as give me another tormented look of guilt or shame and think yourself low, that you've done wrong by me or something," she said as he listened to her with eyes wide open, "So help me Fenris, I will  _murder_  you."

Silence. He remained silent. Swallowed heavily as he said it. Their gazes remained locked together while she waited for him to reply. Violence, yes. Threatening with violence –those were not the threats heavily infused with mockery of a sarcastic girl, nor were they some faintly whispered platitudes of some defenceless high aristocratic maiden . One could only guess how powerfully a strange woman like Hawke must have felt for him at the moment, truthfully threating his worthless bones. She looked rather irresistible to him now. How long before actual violence though? There was still time.

"Do you understand?" she pressed in a high tone.

"Affirmative," he stated in a perfect flat tone.

"Over and out," she said cockily, standing up straight again.

"Suddenly it seems only fair that I should make my own list of regrets on my deathbed," he said innocently, remembering her saying the same thing the night before when he tackled her. Ironically yes, now he was the one being threatened in all the seriousness of tone that Hawke could show him for three or more seconds in B-sharp before her tone would automatically go back in the more familiar B-snark. "I shall trust that you give me a proper eulogy, if it comes to that."

"Nothing like a bit of irony with those famous last words, eh?" Hawke said strongly. "I suggest you have breakfast first."

Fenris broke into soft laughter. "Everything. Everything in the time I have spent in your company was pure irony."

"Then I guess there's no need for irony to make a special effort today," Hawke said calmly and turned for the door. "See you downstairs."

His voice came abruptly commanding from behind. "You are not going anywhere."

Fenris could have tried to abstain from dragging her back by the old blue coat, but then again, like all the others times in the dark pits and catacombs, he didn't. More importantly, he didn't want to. With all the force in his weary bones, he quickly caught her by that clownish coat and she flew right back and fell on him with a  _What the f-._  Her cheek landed bumping into his, all afire with predictable inconvenience. Her red hair cascaded all over his chin, his neck and his chest, and his arms were encaging her strongly by the waist. He held her tighter and inhaled, perhaps to test how much one can press before she lost her temper and set him on fire. Or worse, hit him. Taunting death right before breakfast was just another Tuesday for him.

"Yes?" she asked, calm and contained, but her cheeks said otherwise.

Fenris kissed one of those incredibly angry and revolted cheeks with all the power and firmness of a quite exhausted, still sleep-deprived, but fairly fighting-fit young man.

"Now you can go," he said calmly, eyes alight with a sudden sensuality to match his victory.

"If you are going to do that, would you mind not jostling the bed so much while you're suffocating me?" Hawke said in protest.

Fenris arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Perhaps you could roll around and down on the floor then."

"Perhaps not," she said calmly. "I'd rather take my chances with the lunatic in my bed."

"Technically it is my bed," Fenris said flatly, running his fingers softly at the back of her hair with the perfect mask of nonchalance.

"Well if you really want to swim in pretentious technicalities, then I guess you really lost  _the bet_  this time," Hawke said and smiled arrogantly at the last word.

"Not quite," came Fenris's deep and firm tone that said he had a following persuasive wiseass argument. "But if you really wish me to lose the bet, I will find the time to go in a dark corner and weep," then his green eyes closed halfway with an air of sensuality and his voice grew deeper, "after I apologize to the patron for the bed breaking."

One must give him credit for managing to say in one decisive sentence that he was both a sensitive and a savage man with a particular fancy, beyond the intended sarcasm. The last part though, not very sarcastic, mind you. What she saw and heard was a genuine masculine ardent vibe of firmness and singular desire for her. She was melting in his grip now, overly seduced by his confident words with the fullness of a tigerish appetite. Yes, what Fenris was to her, now more than ever, was almost helplessly irresistible.

Ah, pull yourself together.

"Said the elf who kissed my cheek as if he's saying goodbye to his aunt," she said sharply, taunting eyebrow arching to the skies, indomitable eyes locked onto his.

He swallowed heavily and appeared he was trying to say something.

"I'm trying to treat you like a lady," Fenris said finally, hands still clutching at her waist, more for fear of falling in some dark pit of angst with that sudden honest confession. Gazing at her big lovely eyes, he waited stiffly for her answer.

"Aw, that's sweet," Hawke said with a smile. "Now knock it off." She caught him by the back of his head and made him push his lips into hers with all the passion of an equally tired being and all the more stubborn to play woo-the-funny-warrior-mage for a few seconds. In this newly appointed state of affairs, Fenris quickly grasped harder around her waist and clamped her mouth with a more ardent kiss. Petal-soft, yet equally strong, the motion of their lips grew more fervent as she ran her fingers more aggressively through his hair. The cresting pleasure in his bones could kill an army with a single blow had it been possible to convert it to hostility. But he didn't dare to force her mouth open while perfectly sober. She turned her body around on him while still locking them in their fiery kiss, and held it there for several moments, Fenris losing himself to her maddening command. Only not entirely, for his body was issuing more urgently.

There he sought to hold her still, grasping tightly around her back ever more pressed against him, kissing her once, kissing her twice, woulda-shoulda a thousand more times had the thought travelled in his mind that this might be their last, refusing to let her go.

He was in Hell. As his hands inadvertently gripped tightly at her hips, Hawke withdrew suddenly. His green eyes flinched and quickly protested. His face, of course, was flushed; much altered. His frown of inconvenience was almost unbearable.

"Not enough?" Hawke asked playfully.

"No," Fenris said with an edge to his voice, not a chance to yield his scowl.

He drew her close again stubbornly and very fast with his assertive grasp, and she kissed him again, remarking through her laughter that he was a veritable furnace of passion. It didn't occur to her, or to him, that this was the first and most perfect positioning of their bodies they had woken up being in for the sole purpose of playing around with fire – featherlike on top of him, not crushing him with some tremendous weight, legs parted and encaging his hips, open way for him to press her down and grab her by that one of maddening round parts of her he desperately wanted to touch again, but didn't have the chance to since that one night a million years ago. This was the one thought that didn't seem to have arrived into their sanctum of reason.

Although something  _did_ arrive. Knocked. Never mind the ears she had previously licked some days ago in the carriage. There was another pointy part of Fenris going after her now.

"You're awfully ripe for a dead man," Hawke said with a grin, in-between a heated kiss.

"I prefer to die well-endowed," came Fenris's voice deep with arousal, then drew her back into his urgent hungry lips.

* * *

**A few of those long minutes later…**

"All I see is a fancy bed with a not-so-fancy half-dead elf growing roots to it," Varric muttered angrily as they opened the door.

"Oh this isn't over," Isabela said in annoyance.

"Would you stop bullshitting the bullshitter, Rivaini?" Varric sighed and walked away. "You're ruining my already ruined morning."

Isabela stretched her arms wide in frustration. "She  _was_ there! You gotta – "

"Who?" she heard Fenris ask hoarsely as he rose wearily from the bed, rubbing his eyes with the slowness of a dazed person.

The violent frown on Isabela's face was dangerously close to escorting it with an even more violent punch in his face. But frowning caused wrinkles. She didn't need that kind of trouble. This wasn't over. She walked away without so much as a proper "Mornin', dollface".

 


	38. Trust The Word Of An Antivan

**A few of those long seconds before…**

"What were you saying earlier?" Fenris asked her in-between the now more than ever heated kisses. "That I was a furnace of passion?"

She continued the ardent kiss, and for a moment she muttered, "I don't quite remember." She kissed him again. "I cannot trust my mouth in these situations."

A belated gasp came upon her after Fenris suddenly and with no shame grabbed and harshly squeezed the roundness at the back of her pants.

"Well what about now?" he demanded with a devil's contained smirk. He gave her pale neck a kiss with as much gentle a peck as the opposite way in which his hand was making its conquest on her.

"I'm positively parched," she said with a smile.

She bent down on him again and he caught her hair with his free and more polite and knightly hand and ran his fingers through it as to bring her closer. His right hand was a despicably evil scoundrel and had a mind of its own; and he felt shameful pleasure from it, considering how long a time it had been since that one night in the courtyard a million years ago when he first cupped a feel. And that was only a game, because she did it first as means to annoy the hell out of him. How unfortunate for her, that she didn't even remotely foresee the hell she did bring out of him. Now his hand came back from the dead and sought to bring that hell with it voluntarily.

However, in such moments where logic was obliterated straight from that one fascinating source called  _the brain_ – fascinating because it never seemed to be servicing him with its originally intended functions – he resolved to ignore it and let that dreaded evil hand of his do as it pleased to the limit of her permissions. Yes, she seemed to be quite alright with it. Her cheeks were flushed and burning horribly as his tongue moved serpentlike into hers. And positively parched.

Oh, such deceitful euphemisms for one who detests all euphemisms, and with reason. He kissed her hard and eagerly and felt her body soften, felt her lock to him for one precious instant, and then the flash of icy coldness as she pulled away.

Fenris's scowl of inconvenience honoured her with its appearance the millionth time that morning.

"Do you hear that?" she asked in a sudden rush.

_Yes, it is the sound of utter exasperation, magically brought out from me in insanely gigantic amounts, which is highly ironic considering it is the work of an impossibly tiny being in comparison._

But not a second passed and his long elven ear twitched, as his senses came back too to honour them with an appearance. There were two separate pairs of footsteps. One loud and hunky, accompanied by quieter tones of comedy. One more cat-like, accompanied by way louder tones of bullshit. One could easily be fooled in trying to guess which belonged to who from the two rogues, really.

One could even manage to decipher their conversation.

_Something-something-something – breasts_ , Isabela

_Something-something-something –bullshit,_  Varric.

Yes, now the thought finally arrived into their sanctum of reason, that Hawke was all on top of Fenris in a bed in which she was previously tackled to death, then slept in with him beside her, and in which they were presently exploring the depths of each other's mouths as if to be sure neither would be drowning in fever.

They quickly shared an awkward, stunned look of what-the-hell-do-we-do-now. Perhaps she could get away with saying Fenris magically choked on his own self-hatred and she resolved to save him by giving him a proper mouth-to-mouth taste of her own self-righteousness.

She wondered what would have been the more mind-blowing news either from that, her sudden return, or the simple fact that she was in his room without a black eye to match her historical discourtesy.

"Shit," she said and tried to get off of him. He caught her in place with a look of irritation. There was still time,  _apparently_.

"Just for the record, because I will surely forget what with my mind going terribly numb for about a month now," Fenris started with an edge to his tone. He caught her firmly by the collar of her coat and brought her only an inch away from his bright and angry eyes. She looked at him startled and listened to him when he said in a very dominant tone, "I cannot quite articulate what has been going on for the last month, but now that I have got you," he grasped her coat tighter and brought her even closer to his eyes to make it clearer, all while breathing tigerishly on her face with an air of complete determination, "I am not letting you go."

He wasn't pertaining to  _right now_ , she got that much.

…But the statement threw her off completely. The footsteps became louder. Her brain was becoming deafer.

"You're not?" she almost whispered with eyes unbelievably stunned.

Fenris stared at her unyieldingly in irritation. As if he didn't know her game by now once they would return to Kirkwall. "Do you think I'm an idiot?" he asked with a scratch in his tone.

"No," Hawke said, still caught in his impossible grip and nose bumping into his. "I've just escaped from a den of idiots yesterday, so I'm well familiar with the breed, and you're something else entirely." Fenris narrowed his eyes with annoyance most adorable and she narrowed her eyes as well, with determination most profound. "I am, however, hoping you're not a terribly good shot." She showed him her fist.

Of course. Violence. His eyes were rolling and reaching the back of his head.

But not a moment passed and Fenris exhaled and quickly caught her by the hips and pushed her on the side. The sound of footsteps and of their voices suggested they were going down the hallway now. Yes, his mind was indeed, numb, because there was no more time now. He looked to his right and saw Hawke going for the window.

"Did you leave the window of my room open?" she asked quickly. (He had previously appointed himself gatekeeper and held her key in his pocket because, as he ever-so nicely pointed out, she was a giant klutz and if she would somehow get in her hands the key that held the universe together, shortly thereafter the Apocalypse would certainly be upon them)

"Yes, but what does that–"

"See ya," she waved nonchalantly. In a blasted second she turned into a black bird and took off.

Oh, so she was the bird which showed up and startled everyone when it caught the wheel from the puzzle in its talons and dropped it to them all with the pretense of going to "take a leak." Numb yet again, for the thought didn't really have time to travel in his mind that he should now become mortified with Hawke turning into  _a bird._ As if that was just another Tuesday. Well, yes, it was just another Tuesday indeed, all with the crazy and the inexplicable darted everywhere around them as if they were silently begging for it. Wonders… wonders… He was growing too old to finish that sentence. The redundancy of it was almost repugnant.

His head fell on the pillow much to pretend he was asleep and just the same to cradle the collapse of his poor little mind. Too many wondrous calamities and ancient sorceries for one day. And the next fifty years at least.

* * *

**A few of those moments later…**

Fenris came out of his room after Isabela gave him the murderous look that said she was going to hurt him soon. Whatever did he do?

"Varric!" resounded Hawke's voice most joyful further down the hallway.

"Hawke!" Varric shouted and to everyone's shock now in the hallway, he hugged her by the waist with the mighty grip of a lion. "Andraste's ass I thought you were dead."

Her voice and face came very smug as she hugged him back tightly, "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm sorry oh mighty indestructible princess, I have a great imagination and I can't help not using it," Varric said sarcastically.

"Oh, thank those stupid gods, I thought I would have to go beg Armand to give me some money," Isabela shouted and came to hug Hawke too. "Now  _that_ is a pathetic way to die."

"Ah, I love how you stay so true," Hawke said joyfully and pat Isabela on the back. Her eyes came now on Fenris. It was high time one of them pretended they just came across each other.

"Glad I'm not dead?" Hawke asked Fenris with a smile while still in Isabela's hug.

"I knew you weren't dead," Fenris said calmly, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed. Hawke's throat stiffened fearing he would blow her cover, but he shortly drew up a smug grin to match his smug posture. "There'd be terrified little angels and spirits crossing the Veil all desperate to get away."

She narrowed her eyes and pretended to scratch the air for his stinging comment.

"How are you? What happened?" Varric shouted impatiently.

"Oh, nothing much," she said calmly. "What about you?"

"Cut it Pantaloons before I shoot you in the face," Varric demanded seriously.

"Ah, fine," she said and her shoulders sank. "I saw the Warden. More like hallucinated. You know? Zevran's wife? I took off to chase her thinking if I impress her enough with my stunning acrobatics we might just stop at some street café in the city and share war stratagems, listen to her stories about the Blight and discuss the fate of Thedas over tea. Then I kinda blacked out and I woke up in the Bone Pit with some elf reciting poetry to me in Antivan. After that I thought I'd just sleep it off."

Little did she think to take into account that she had not yet told Fenris about the waking up in the brothel with an elf part and he would quickly misinterpret and in good reason. She didn't seem to be lying about anything else, so this had to be true just as well.

This was very quickly the case. She looked across Isabela at Fenris who was still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, but giving her a very dark, flat look through his hair which could only mean _murder_. The claws of his gauntlets were a squeeze away from drawing out blood out of his arm.

Great…

Meanwhile, Varric lifted his eyebrows in amazement and shook his head. "And there came the most calm and equally crazy sentence said in history since Andraste told Maferath:  _Despair not for your betrayal was Maker-blessed and it returned me to His side_."

"Since when do you know the Chant of Light?" Hawke asked with a laugh.

"Hello? Are you deaf? Blind? Hit in the head?" Varric shouted in protest and stretched his arms. His tone was very friendly in its sincerity, "Worried and mortified for two days straight, Hawke."

Hawke remained silent and seemed to ponder something as she frowned. She retained that frown as she looked at both Varric and Fenris. "You two are weird. I'm gonna take a bath now."

* * *

**Sometime later**

Finally after so much time spent in those clothes in the filth and havoc of those Antivan catacombs, she could take a bath. A long, hot, well-deserved damn bath. She went down the stairs of the palazzo-inn and into the bathing rooms all made of luxurious white marble and adorned with wall-hanging perfumed roses. It was most beautiful.

Just when she was about to go to the ladies room of those charming and breath-taking premises, she heard the silent flaring nostrils of murder greeting her from behind.

"Taking a bath are we?" came Fenris's flat tone.

"No, I am," Hawke said calmly as she turned around.

"A wise choice," Fenris replied nonchalantly as he approached her. "All with cleansing the filth off from your recent  _adventuring_."

"That's usually how a bath goes," she replied with a lifted eyebrow.

Fenris studied her for a second, as if she had a spot on her face. They locked their gazes together as she kept her arching eyebrow.

"Well… I'm off to my bath now," she said impatiently and turned around.

His nostrils flared and he turned around to go. "That one will not be enough," he muttered with masked insipidness.

Hawke turned back with a frown and asked in a controlled tone, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Fenris stopped his pace and turned his head half-way with nonchalance. "It means what it means."

"Oh, I was afraid  _meaning_ was making a special effort not to be annoyingly redundant today," she said with a scowl.

Fenris returned her scowl in silence. Finally he said in a tone of inconvincible tranquility, "It has recently lost its ambition."

"Well why don't you make an effort to bring it back?" Hawke demanded firmly.

"I don't see the point in trying," Fenris said insipidly.

She sighed and crossed her arms. "Maybe you could borrow some from that high ambition of your passive aggressiveness. That one seems to be plenty loaded."

"My what?" Fenris asked with an indomitable gaze.

She sighed. "Why are you here?" Hawke fired back to destroy his stubborn deflections.

He remained calm and content. He pointed at his old clothes. "The same reason you are."

"Oh, to cleanse yourself from the filth of your recent adventuring," Hawke said while accentuating the words. "I'm sure."

Fenris turned his gaze to the men's room and his face became a little weaker in hiding his annoyance. He took off towards it as he muttered quietly, "Not  _my_ adventuring."

The impossible scowl on Hawke's face couldn't get any bigger. She lost her temper. "How about you look me in the eye when you call me a whore?"

Fenris flinched and turned around. She kept her self-assured and strong gaze locked onto his quickly crumbling one.

Cornered and such, he turned his gaze straight to her eyes and calmly said, "I tend to tell the truth when I look you in the eye."

She crossed her arms again. "Do you also tend to stand still when you stare Death in the eye?" she asked with a heightened annoyance toned.

"Not really, although I prefer to die well-informed," Fenris said calmly.

"Well, then," Hawke said with an edge to her voice. "Good thing you didn't look me in the eye or your famous last words would have been belonged to the land of insane and wild exaggerations." She uncrossed her arms as he watched her firmly. "You can add that to your list of last regrets, since it's uncharacteristic of you to be  _unfair_ , right?"

"That is quite right," Fenris said with a chivalrous nod. "The only question remaining," he said and lifted his eyebrows as he looked up, "is if Death has any more interest with me," he lowered his gaze back at her with half-lidded eyes, "now that I haven't explicitly stated my insane and wild exaggeration."

Hawke finally smirked and rolled her eyes. "She's fairly annoyed with you and your clever semantics," she said, then innocently mused, "but she'll live. If that makes sense."

Fenris returned her smile shortly and he lowered his head in shame and scratched his head. "It seems I've dodged a fatal arrow there, haven't I?"

Ah, it would have been stupid to be mad at him now. She couldn't expect him to be fair with expressing his doubts, jealousy or discomfort properly, unless it was through anger and violence. And he did vow in his mind that he would never lose his temper with her again. She had to appreciate that.

She'd have to give him a medal.

"Next time, you can save us both some time and nerves and simply ask," Hawke said with a smirk.

"How simple it sounds, yet in practice," Fenris said with an ashamed sigh. "A bit more complicated than that."

"Well, that's what I'm here for!" she said with a joyful kind of grump. "Explaining and reminding everyone they're idiots."

"How generous and not at all arrogant of you," Fenris said sarcastically.

"It's not arrogance when it's the truth," Hawke said with a smug grin. She turned to the door. "Now if you'll –" Fenris approached her from behind. "Uhm."

"Yes?" he asked nonchalantly.

"See this?" Hawke pointed at the sign of a lady with a hat on the door. "This one has a pretentious little hat. Do you have a hat, Fenris?"

He lifted an irritated eyebrow. His tone was calm, "Well can't you just give me your little pretentious  _smart-ass_  and I could wear it like one? Half the time it does block my sunlight, after all."

She remained silent for a moment, trying to sink it in with an amused smile. "Wow. You're starting to sound like me."

"Regrettably," Fenris stung calmly.

"Sad isn't it?" Hawke asked cockily with a smile.

"That it is not so  _little_?" Fenris asked nonchalantly.

She gave a mocking glance to his butt. "Well now, it would be quite a tragedy if we sounded  _and_ looked like one another, now, wouldn't it?"

"That seems fair," Fenris said with a smile. There had to be some sarcastic comment lurking in the air. "I think we should focus on the positive side and cherish our differences."

"Pssht. Since when?" Hawke asked unconvinced.

"Since I see it can be rather productive when they come together," Fenris said with a shrug.

"Yeah. Crazy redhead with extreme rage issues on the battlefield and a blue glowing snowglobe of perfect calm and tranquility," she said while shaking her head and stretching her arms. "I see your point. We complete each other yadda yadda, bull-"

"Indeed. And imagine we had a child," Fenris said abruptly while looking away. Hawke froze and her jaw landed somewhere in the Deep Roads.

_Please let there be a follow-up punch-line,_ she pleaded in her mind.

Fenris leaned on a wall nearby in slow motions as if to deliberately harrow the pits of the Void upon her with the waiting. He finally continued, "With your quick wit," Fenris pointed and then drew up a smirk, "and my stunning good looks."

_Thank the Maker._

She resumed her joyful face. "Or with my botched face and your remarkable stupidity."

"Now  _that_  would be sad," Fenris said calmly.

* * *

**Sunrise, Near the Bridge of Liberty**

Hawke and Fenris had up until now slept together in three different beds.

Three times they had slept together. Next to one another together. Not together-together. But it was still more or less together, wasn't it? He sighed.

His thoughts almost seem to have a striking resemblance to the elven blood mage's inane rambling, to which he would always roll his eyes. Sometimes within, if his head hurt too much because of Hawke's loud voice overshadowing everyone else's. He would always feel a little grateful for that.

First time, it was out of pure fate and necessity, in The Sunken Orlesian's Inn. He was perfectly sober, but he had only just met her. And at that time he was battling between the wondrous idea of simply killing her and the truly starlit idea of only just  _slightly_ killing her.

Second time, he was dead-drunk. Not the usual even stingier Fenris full of the rampant tones of a mean and grumpy drunk, but past the point of his natural character and down the hill.

Down on the ground.

Uppity back and in her bed.

When he awoke, it seemed only natural that he should be there. Two seconds later he would have really truly hoped that his lyrium haze could also slowly just make him fade away and disappear. Yes, like a withering flower or a vapour in the dessert. A wisp. Poof. Yes, and indeed two more of those seconds passed and only afterwards had it been truly the most awkward moment of his life, because his courage was lost somewhere in the cruel threads of time, and so was hers, all tangled up into a following wind of masked nonchalance. And lest not he forget, he impulsively tackled her with kisses the night before this happened, because at the time, it made perfect sense to him to follow her into her room and glue and sink or melt himself into her simply because he preferred her long and wild crown of thick red hair to the duller-looking and much duller-feeling one coming from a horse that made the outer layer of his armchair.

The third time, well, he was just dead. Correction; he was dead with anger and exhaustion and this time nothing in the world made more sense to him than to throw her on the bed and demand of her to tell him where she went, even if he knew she probably had no idea all with being overly exerted by the lack of health and magic in her by the time they had escaped. As Hawke suddenly showed up and took her really nice, very smooth, much sluggish time to sloooowly build up to her usual number of comedy… he had lost it.

Most times it was rather like an honor to be mad at her.

Yes, one could say she was very  _lazy_  with her sarcasm. One could say she put a lot of honest effort into being exactly that. And when she was truly "lazy" _,_ he was truly very "nice"with his anger, as if the most impertinent thing he could do was simply to strike her with all the fearsome might of his scowl.

And then came upon morning and it was rather bright and perfect this time.

Except for the fact that, pardon the scratch in the phrase – he woke up with morning wood and she woke up with morning wouldn't.

Ah. Come back, you one thought.

Let us be more organized.

Bed no. 1: Sober, wanted to kill her only slightly in his thoughts, only mumbled in competitive snarkiness upon morning about the bed breaking and such.

Bed no. 2: Drunk, wanted to do something  _else_  and very  _a lot_ to her, and  _not_ in his thoughts, positively attempted to… what was the word…  _jump_  her, no arguing or snarkiness upon morning as he recalled, only yet again mumbled something about not losing the bet because of technicalities and bed breaking and such.

Bed no. 3: Exhausted and dead-worried, angry to the bone, wanted to void her and not in his thoughts, wanted to do a lot more to her and not in his thoughts, wanted to protect her and never let go of her and not in his thoughts.

Yes, now it seemed that the truly one, two actually, very different things – ah, three ideas – about Bed no.3 were –  _Make a list,_ he screamed at himself.

\- That everything he had ever felt for Hawke, all those separate feelings, not only grew more fervent and combined each other into a rampant kettle of boiling blood-rosy soup of emotion, but it, or  _they –_ all of those feelings into one simply blew out of cosmic proportions.

\- Upon morning, although they both had that distinct scratch lurking in their tones, those were remarks made with  _calm, joyful, playful_ behavior. And deliberate, courageous flirtations. And dragging her into his strong embrace and ardent kisses  _without being provoked,_ or drunk, or threatened _,_ or worried, or angry, or uppity – well, one could argue about  **up** pity –

\- This had been the best morning of his life.

Joy of joys. That was not sarcasm.

He never guessed. He thought, he pondered, he deduced, he decided. But he never guessed.

And he concluded it was happiness.

Almost content with his triumph, suddenly he also concluded that in all his defensiveness, fear, worry, the numerous shocks he had lived through in the last two weeks… He displaced his perspective. Not entirely, but still.

Yes, yes, he was enchanted by her sarcasm. The fine tunes of sharp and flat coming from him, the mean, the grumpy and the joyful little jokes and the mighty battle of wits galore from both. Yes. But it had been quite a long time since they had truly argued or went at each other's throats. When was that last? … Somewhere possibly down the lines of when she started to thoroughly teach him how to read and write. Preposterous, that was months ago… Sure, some little comments even he could not abstain from doing afterwards. After all, he was an ocean of grumpy sarcastic comments muttered in hush and calm tones, perhaps to be perfectly in tune to match Hawke's loud and joyful equally sarcastic comments – now he realized. They balanced each other out.

He must be remarkably stupid indeed.

They were making jokes. Playing, musing, satirizing, humoring, whatever. Not all of it had some scratch lurking in it. More than half the time that was the case –of simple jokes and having fun, laughing with each other instead of at each other… a half of the other half was more of a snarky-uppity approach, and the other half of the other half was but a mere fullness of  _calm and peaceful dialogues_. And they had a lot of those too. Indeed, they had managed to cover almost the whole of worldly and galactic subjects and topics, except little short of their secretive despair, the ghost of their separate pasts and lastly, their true feelings for each other. There was still time for that… Not today. Today, as was yesterday and the day before, and forever tomorrow until  _something_ or  _someone_ caught on fire, nothing seemed more appropriate than for them to continue in this manner. Not the secretive, defensive part, but the musing and joking in calm or lively tones part.

They were funny people.

The sky was blue and the grass was green.

Yes, now it made sense.

He was displacing his thoughts and worries to better suit his private fears. He would never forgive himself if he had lost his temper again with such a change in his manner as to almost be on the verge of killing her out of sheer raging idiocy. Or idiotic rage. Both made a fine case out of him after all.

He felt it though. He felt it all, that she understood him, that she accepted him, that she resolved in her mind to even better understand him. That she intended not to defend herself at all because she trusted that he would never do it. And she proved him right. His rage came as quick aflame as those raging flames quickly died. She was ready to understand. Emphasis on the ready. Without pressing him. No, that would be a wicked thing to do. He appreciated this liberty she gave him.

Things were going well, either way.

It was clear now that he had to take delight in this happier turn of events and enjoy it. Enjoy life, enjoy her, enjoy it all, no matter what she chose to do with him. The curious feeling of content, of being fulfilled, of feeling so remarkably free, was but a stone's throw away. He only had to make sure he was not going to deliberately throw the stone in his face, as his unconscious automatisms usually dictated.

Finally, his brooding was slapped away when Armand and Zevran approached him as he was sitting at a white fancy table in front of that restaurant – or more realistically speaking, a more luxurious tavern – with outdoor seating from across the street. They went there in their first night in Antiva City and it seemed perfectly deprived of all souls since the sun had barely even risen yet.

The chilly morning was accompanied by a very beautiful mantle of fog all around the city. It made all the colors simply become more radiant and contrasting to the current air of coldness and paleness that Mother Nature had bestowed upon the world.

"His face does have a brooding sensuality to it, you were right, my friend," Zevran said joyfully as they each took a seat at the table.

"Pardon?" Fenris asked in sudden discomfort.

"Ah, nothing," Zevran said with a smile and conquered the table with his fine elbows. "We were just discussing beauty. The beauty of dead people."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow and looked down around himself. "I seem awfully flushed for a dead man."

"That's because you are alive," came Armand's sharp and flat tone.

_Obviously,_ Fenris thought grumpily. But then it hit him that Armand's rare-if-ever humorous remarks seemed indeed, rare, because he was much more clever and subtle with his approach. While appearing to say a mere serious, dull platitude, what Armand actually intended was to say "Do not be so hasty. He said the  _beauty_  of dead people and you are much alive. Obviously, you think too highly of yourself."

Thus his laughter came belated, but at least it made an appearance. "Indeed perhaps I was a bit hasty."

Armand smirked at last and Zevran resumed his louder speeches. "Ah, how did the saying go? From the cradle to the grave? Well I find graves to be insanely useless in my doing of things."

"I'm trying to think of how you will manage to throw the impending perverted punch-line with that sentence," Fenris said grumpily as he rested his leg on the empty next to him.

"That is because there is no impending perverted punch-line," Zevran said with a smile. Then his smile turned into a standalone grin. "Although…"

Armand rolled his eyes. "Way to put ideas in his head, Fenris."

He returned a smirk. "I see we're on a first name basis now. Or should I say real name basis."

"Yes, and see how quickly it died out when you managed to annoy me?" Armand said grumpily and sighed. He resumed his sharp familiar Antivan scratch with his saying, "Back to little bitch it is."

"This is most curious," Fenris said in a flat tone.

"What is?" Armand asked.

Fenris nodded towards the childishly snorting Zevran. "You seem to have nerves of steel with this one, yet with me-"

" _This one_! As if I'm some common lowly whathisface!" Zevran protested loudly and gestured. "No surprise why Hawke is so snarkity-uppity with you."

"Snarkity… uppity?" Fenris asked in disbelief with a tone that said he thought him an idiot.

"You are a man of few words," Zevran said with a smile and then nodded, "But they are quite enough to make someone wish to kill you within three seconds of meeting you."

"I suspect when she has so much in common with someone, she can't help but like me a little," Fenris said nonchalantly. He knew it to be true.

"Yes you are quite similar, are you not? You must have felt like quite the fool cursed by irony, no?" Zevran said and smiled again brightly.

"You cannot even begin to imagine," Fenris said while shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

"A snarky and peppery fugitive ex-slave from Tevinter meets a beautiful salty Ferelden apostate  _right_  halfway through the world in the enigmatic city of Kirkwall. This seems like quite the perfect idea for a dark and sexy romance novel," Zevran said joyfully. "Oh, yes, Dorian must surely try and cook up a draft in the near future! I would love to read something like that."

"I suspect someone has already outrun you in that endeavor," Fenris said grumpily, pertaining to Varric. "Feel free to pester the dwarf about it and leave  _me_  alone."

"Haha, oh, well now," Zevran said with a smirk and bent over the table. "I'm living  _my_ love story." Then he winked at him. "Yours still appears to be tangled up in the imaginary." Straight below the belt he had went, and not just in battle or in bed.

"Just the  _one_?" Fenris asked stingingly, raising an eyebrow. "I am truly impressed by your loyalty."

Zevran frowned and the corner of his lips went a bit crooked. Of course he gave an appearance of someone who would hump a chair if there was nothing remotely similar to a living being in sight, but that was just what it was. An appearance. He was more faithful to the Warden than the Chantry and the Templars were on torturing the entirety of the magical race.

Finally he muttered, "Tsk. She must have nerves of steel indeed to have suffered you all this time without giving you a proper and thorough beating."

Fenris lifted his eyebrows. " _She_ has to possess the nerves of steel?" He rolled his eyes. "Have you even listened to one word she said in-between strategically cheating on your wife with other little organs than the one which would indeed make it a little like betrayal?"

Oh, you are playing with fire, the Antivan's eyes said.

"You beg for it, my friend. The beating I mean," Zevran said almost with discomfort through his smile. "And how dare you throw such mean accusations on me!"

Fenris shrugged calmly. "You beg for it," he said with an edge. He shortly smirked, "The beating I mean."

"I beg  _to differ_ ," Zevran said and cupped his chin. "I usually make do with at least half a day before someone wishes and tries to kill me." Then it appeared his eyes sparkled as he looked around. "Speaking of which –"

"Oh, I do not wish to kill you," Fenris said nonchalantly and dismissed him with a wave. "Although anything I would say I wish to do to you, you would just turn it to sound like a twisted perversion."

"How true," Armand said with a sudden smirk, as if he was remembering something. No doubt sometime in the past Armand and Zevran did not get along. They were the screaming proof of utterly different existing attitudes and personalities. It was absolutely inconceivable that it could have been any other way than Armand first wanting to gag and kill Zevran within three seconds of him opening his dirty mouth.

"Nope," Zevran said sweetly. "You could say you wish to buy me coffee."

Armand suddenly snorted. "That is Antivan code for shacking up."

"Well, he did not need to know that," Zevran fired back with inconvenience as he turned his head to Armand.

Being in the presence of two men very familiar with  _men,_ Fenris felt a bit cornered. Indeed, it seemed he had to be a little grateful though. He was quick with his jealousy. First he felt a rush to rapidly hate Dorian and his flirtatious familiarity with Hawke and almost got to the point of beating him up on the road. Then Zevran butting in to steal the glory with his charming advances within three seconds of meeting Hawke and thus within four to really bring his nerves out. Armand was the only one who did not turn him into a ticking time bomb and that was because he managed to find out he was taken with a man. Yes, he had to be grateful for that. Feeling the urge or ending up beating a second gay guy would have looked bad.

"I am quite bewildered as to how you ended up being married," Fenris said calmly, after the sleepy waiter finally brought their morning Antivan coffee.

Curiously, Armand took a sip of the fourth additional coffee he ordered, and then left it alone there.

"Has your eyesight not been working this whole time?" Zevran asked eagerly. "I am a delight!"

"A delight to be brutally offed and out of this world," Fenris completed calmly as he drank his coffee.

"That's exactly what she said to me!" Zevran almost shouted while smiling. Then he stared in blank. " 'Zevran, do not doubt that when we meet the Archdemon, I'm using you and your smug little mouth as an elven shield. If it's as unyielding at being smug as it is at saving my ass, then you shouldn't worry. Darling, don't look at me like that. You should be grateful with me. I am actually trying to be nice and controlled with my urge to simply throw you at it'. Quite the love declaration _._ "

Fenris broke into laughter. It startled both the men.

"Is she generally that mean or was she saying that all in good reason?" Fenris asked as he was fairly amused.

"All in good reason," Zevran laughed.

"I respect that," Fenris said and gestured a cheers with his cup.

"Mi cara," Zevran said while sighing. "Not a second passes that I feel I will die if I don't see her again soon."

"You or just one part of you?" Fenris asked in amusement. If one particular part of him died, it wouldn't seem like such a tragedy. No, even if that part was cut off, Zevran would probably still want to have sex.

"All of me!" Zevran shouted happily. "I love her with all of me." Then Zevran painted a very intrusive and triumphant risen eyebrow. "Can you say the same about yourself?"

Consequently, Fenris's throat stiffened and his breathing air ways suddenly blocked. His eyes were empty and he quickly forgot where he was and whatever else that was happening. The chilly fog around them was clearer than the howling confusion in his head.

That word did not belong to his vocabulary. That word did not belong to his anything. And even without making use of that word, he knew little short of less than nothing about what he was doing or what he was feeling for  _his_  particular redhead. Who was not even his to call as such.

Suddenly his air of triumph for what happened in the last day had been viciously crushed by one short decisive sentence from an equally short decisive elf.

Curse him.

"Leave him alone," Armand said suddenly. Fenris finally breathed again. "He's utterly clueless."

"Well,  _obviously_ ," Zevran replied confidently while sipping his coffee.

"Oh, wonderful," Fenris said grumpily. He took a sip from his cup, then said, "Why don't you illuminate me."

"Gladly! You see –" Zevran started eagerly.

Fenris dismissed him with his palm. "That was sarcasm."

"I resolve to ignore it," Zevran said confidently, shrugging. "So as I was saying– "

"I do not need advice," Fenris fired back in annoyance.

There came an air of silence from the two other elves, both raising their eyebrows with half-lidded eyes and intending their being quiet to make the strongest possible impression that what Fenris had said was the biggest most impossible little lie since Andraste had told Maferath it was the Maker's.

"Fine…" his voice came very low and quiet as he looked down and started appearing very immersed into admiring the circles in his coffee as he put it down. "Maybe I need a little advice."

_Both_  of them snorted. "A little," they both said.

"Either state your ground-breaking ideas or cease with the inane prodding," Fenris demanded with a very obvious edge in his tone as he squeezed the cup with both of his hands.

"We are a couple of wiseasses are we not?" Zevran laughed while looking at Armand. "But all in good reason, of course."

"Of course," Armand said nonchalantly, almost drawing up a smirk.

"Here is the deal – it does not matter who has the penis –"

Fenris rolled his eyes. "I could swear you would start with –"

"Either shut up and listen or we will cease with the  _inane prodding_ ," Zevran fired back and leaned over to the other elf. "Aren't we, Armand?"

"Very much so," Armand said sharply, resting an arm over the back of his chair.

Fenris rolled his eyes again. He waved a hand grumpily. "Proceed."

"Yielding are we? That is quite a good tactic even it if does not appear so at first glance," Zevran said with a nod and a confident grin.

"Riddles..." Fenris muttered, lifting his eyebrows and looking down. "…Shocking."

"Tsk." Zevran leaned back in his chair and gestured a dismissal. "You are on your own."

"Oh, come on!" came Fenris's sudden angry voice. He was little short of banging his fist on the table. He was abstaining.

"Begging," he laughed. "That you do not want to do," Zevran grinned abhorrently confident. "Unless she finds begging sexy, in which case knock yourself out."

"If she does then I clearly must have mental problems," Fenris muttered sharply.

"Of course you do, regardless of that," Zevran replied. "All people sitting at this table are utterly and irrevocably crazy. Which makes it even better."

"Meaning?" Fenris asked.

"None are better equipped to venture into the unknown and enigmatic lands of love as we crazy people do," Zevran said innocently. "It is a law of Nature. All unbeknownst that She is crazy too."

More riddles. Shocking.

He abstained from commenting.

"But of course all these thoughts are moot," Zevran said surprisingly. "What matters is what to do once we're there. Have you been…" he raised a naughty eyebrow, "…there?"

Fenris frowned in confusion. He didn't know how to answer that.

"He's tested the waters and the waters were shallow," Armand answered calmly for him.

"Oh, I am perfectly sure that he can _thrust_  deeper," Zevran said with a devilish grin.

"I am perfectly sure I do not understand," Fenris said with a sigh.

"Dear man," Zevran started warmly. He put an elbow on the table and raised his palm to gesture while looking up to gather wit from all-knowing Heaven, all-stranger to him, for if Heaven knew who it was talking to, it would have started weeping with massive showers of rain upon them. "A woman, or a man, it does not quite matter really – but let's call it woman for the sake of your situation – one who is clever enough to dismiss you even with the slightest of scratchy gestures, must be approached with the same amount of sentimental wit."

"And by that he means you need to beat her at her own game with all the gracious respect a gentleman holds for a lady," Armand joined in with a nod.

"And by that of course, he means you have to woo her," Zevran said with a smile. "With an o, not with an e, well - one could argue- "

Fenris's gaze turned from one potentially insane elf to the other with such rapidity he quickly became dizzy and all the more lost.

" _Woo_ her?" he asked with the highest that his eyebrow could reach and the most he could sharply articulate the word.

"So being all knight in shining armor until she finally puts out," Armand said rather surprisingly. "That is how it is commonly known to go. If you do that with her," he gestured to the inn with half-lidded eyes, "You can pack your bags and move to little phlegmatic pretentious Orlais with six broken ribs, a black eye and missing one testicle."

"And we all hate it when  _that_  happens," Zevran said with closed eyes and approving with his tranquil nods.

"Well, we don't want that, do we," Fenris said with half-lidded eyes and a crooked grimace.

"So what you can do is be a knight in… how should we put it," Zevran said and looked at Armand.

Armand smirked a bit and finished his sentence as if they had lived together for a decade, "Darker armour."

How dramatic. He abstained from commenting.

"And by that we mean this: rather than trying to pointlessly impress her and be all kittens and rainbows," Zevran started while rolling his eyes at the last bit, "simply make do with showing her what nobody hardly ever does –understanding. Accepting. Giving her the helping hand even if she doesn't call for it. Even if she utterly and stubbornly refuses it."

"And of course, cut it with the jealousy," Armand said sharply.

"She confessed that she enjoyed it," Fenris protested.

Zevran shook his head calmly. "No, no, no. It is fine to show her you are threatened. It is fine to show her what a big bad Fenris you can be.  _Harrowing Hell_ , even I was impressed and a little bit frightened, I must confess," he said with an innocent smile, "But if you are threatened by any man or woman who even remotely looks at her and you act as if she is yours and abuse of that possessive pronoun and stretch it to marvelous, unreasonable extents…"

"You are doomed," Armand finished sharply, arm still resting nonchalantly at the back of the chair.

Fenris didn't seem to be impressed, but Zevran pressed, "Do not doubt that she has or will have other admirers. Of course, she is rather strange, a bit sharp on the edges and a threat to most men and their pretentious masculinity, but there is  _always_ going to be at least one other man or woman that will not be so threatened."

He couldn't conceive of such a one, but alas. He abstained from commenting.

"I've learned it the hard way," Zevran said with a sigh. "Armand did too, no doubt. Didn't you?"

Armand rolled his eyes very shortly. His tone came very grumpy in its reminiscing, "Fun times."

"Very fun for the one admired, not so much for the admir _er_ ," Zevran said and narrowed his eyes while clenching his fists a bit on the table. "No, not for us who were secretly abstaining from going at the other's throat, but quickly made do with politely excusing ourselves and crawling into a dark corner to  _bark_ ," Zevran said with a sharp tone.

"I am just filled with joy all with you making all of  _us_ seem like dogs," Fenris said grumpily.

"If I make us seem like whales or hippity-hippos, would it make you feel any less offended?" Zevran asked while rolling his eyes. "Besides, if we are dogs, then that makes the object of our affection _bitches._ And while we say that with affection it never sounds quite that offensive."

"Yes, it does sound a bit endearing, doesn't it?" Armand surprisingly agreed.

Hawke's mabari, Mojo, was surely smarter and more content than any of the men sitting at the table like such civilized people. Well, the most civilized they could get. Fenris resting a leg on the empty chair beside him, Armand resting his arm at the back of his chair and Zevran conquering the table with his reeking elbows of confidence and widely parted legs under the table. He would not have the stomach to look under it if he dropped something by accident.

"You were saying something about jealousy before going tangled up in animalic terms," Fenris brought it back quickly, since he was growing positively impatient.

"To match our tigerish little appetite and our wolfish little hearts!" Zevran mused with a big smile.

Armand smirked arrogantly. "And our horse-like giant c-"

"Please tell me there's some coffee left for me," Dorian's voice came to save the impending perversion coming from Armand's evermore truthfully shocking dirty mouth.

The words that came out of Armand's usually cold and sharp tongue, now made Fenris's eyes fatally dry from growing wide and his jaw to land somewhere in the dwarven thaigs with full force. Armand's voice was deep and full with warmth in his sharp accent. "I saved you a cup, Amore."

"Thank goodness," Dorian said with a laugh. "You are goodness in a cup."

"I am also a god," Armand said rather arrogantly in his musing. His flirtatious eyebrow and half-lidded eyes were most disturbing.

"I do tend to call on you in bed," Dorian mused with a smirk. He drank his coffee joyfully and resumed listening to the others.

"Like I was saying, there is always room for some other smug bastard to rival in your courtship," Zevran explained calmly. "And you will do well to rival him with perfect tranquility."

"And pretend he doesn't exist," Armand added with a nod. "Once you grant him the right to existence, to hell with all the peace and quiet."

"If she is taken with you, you should not even worry," Zevran said with a shrug. "And trust the words of an Antivan, she  _is_ quite taken with you."

Fenris snorted at his dramatic comment. "Trust the words of an Antivan? That sounds like quite the contradiction."

"Well, now," Zevran said a bit offended. "Perhaps you would do well to trust the words of  _two_ Antivans then."

"Perhaps," Fenris said flatly. He took another sip of nonchalance.

"And even with no rival, you should always and always be ready to take her down as well," Zevran said. "Well, besides taking her down into the ever-more-wished horizontal positions. Yes that is the hardest part, is it not?"

"Very hard," Armand said sharply. You could guess he meant it as a clever hidden dirty comment to shortly explain exasperation.

It had been quite easy to take her down into a horizontal position, in fact. But alas, technicalities. He would do well to abstain from commenting. His curiosity was piqued.

"And what would you have me do?" Fenris demanded.

"Press," Armand took the initiative. "Always press. Don't give up. It's stupid."

"Yes, never yield," Zevran said. "Yielding is for  _bastards._ " For some reason, all with being aware of the history of the group that defeated the Blight, Fenris suspected Zevran was subtly pertaining to a particular bastard now on the Ferelden throne.

"Well that is a big load o'crap with your coffee of stubbornness this sodding morning of self-denial," Dorian surprisingly intervened in irritation. He looked at Armand and Zevran with a very disappointed protest in his eyes. They were both startled. A very tiny elf with now a very decisive outraged voice.

Zevran looked at Armand as if he would know what Dorian meant, but the Antivan shrugged with a trembling lower lip.

"You don't  _press,_ at least not like a big barking bowl of bestiality," Dorian said firmly.

"Big barking bowl of bestiality!" Zevran shouted. "I wonder how quickly I can say it five times in a row? Let's see. Bi-brking-bo-"

"If you want to make someone stay, then you need to kinda let them go," Dorian said confidently.

Armand frowned a bit. He didn't understand. Zevran only looked as if he had understood.

Dorian sighed and gestured, "You boys are clueless."

"Well now, we do have a penis after all," Zevran protested sharply with a raised eyebrow. "I wonder where yours went."

"It's landed much quicker where I wanted it to land than yours did," Dorian stung back firmly.

Now this was most amusing. Zevran was finally being dethroned. And Armand was ripe and flushed with redness in his once indomitable cheeks.

"Hm, 'tis true," Zevran yielded with an edge in his tone. "Do go on then, precioso."

Dorian resumed his explanation, "Well, if she's all – wait. We're talking about Hawke, aren't we?"

Fenris swallowed heavily. Curse him, he forgot they were friends.

"Well with Hawke I can tell you this," Dorian said and conquered the table with his elbows. He took a sip of nonchalance, and then resumed his grin, "You do not have a chance if you're a pretentious little douche."

"Does he seem like he's little or pretentious?" Zevran asked sarcastically.

Dorian laughed. "No, he's fine. What Hawke dismisses are jerks. He's not a jerk. He's more of a … half-stingy harmlessly-venomous little snake."

"Emphasis on the little snake?" Zevran asked innocently.

"It is not the size that matters, it is where you get to put it, - Adonis, 9:33 Dragon," Fenris mockingly quoted the elf. It didn't matter. Of course, if it did, he would not have to be worried. But he was abstaining from feeling smug about it since Zevran was stealing all that ambition and leaving him careless in that not so little endeavor.

"Ah, you do listen!" Zevran shouted eagerly. "How shocking it is."

"And you do spew perversions whenever a poor little word has the unfortunate fate of being cheaply twisted," Fenris stung back nonchalantly.

"It had been a long time since I made a euphemism," Zevran defended himself innocently. "Truly, you must give me some credit. I tried to abstain for as long as I possibly could."

"He's not bullshitting," Armand said seriously. Then glanced sharply at him, "This time."

"You wound me," Zevran mused with a smile. "And I never did mind a few burns."

"So how does he get to put  _it_  there?" Armand asked Dorian shortly thereafter, as if he was actually curious as to why he was protesting and discarding the two Antivans' theories.

"Well first of all, be yourself," Dorian said to Fenris with a sigh. "I don't care what shit you do. First rule of thumb is never stop being yourself. Otherwise you'll probably manage to come to be together, but your stupid fake relationship will just as soon come to an end. You'll become yourself later and then you'll both be surprised of how much a fantasy you built up in your heads that you actually got along."

"That seems only fair," Fenris approved calmly. "What is the second rule?"

"Well since I'm familiar with the particular garden you're trying to reach," Dorian said with a naughty eyebrow, probably to get on Fenris's nerves again and play a little, "I can say very confidently that this applies to me as much as it does to you."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"If she's all defenses and dismissive while still showing that she wants you," Dorian said and gave Armand a very obvious and sharp look, "you just gotta be a little more distant and colder. Just a little. Nonchalant. Joyful. All full of  _whatever._ " He quickly lifted his cup of coffee as if to make a toast. "Then they be tremblin'."

"You did that on purpose?" Armand asked in sincere amazement and discomfort, his nonchalant arm at the back of his chair falling into sudden not so nonchalant defeat.

"You noticed?" Dorian mused with a snort, drinking the coffee.

"Hardly," Armand said honestly. "Not until much later."

"Well then," Dorian grinned, holding the cup to his face as if it was a symbol of victory, "I mean, don't get me wrong, like I said," he said back to Fenris. "First rule of thumb is to be yourself. I'm just pertaining to how much of  _yourself_ you should give. Like not throw yourself at them more likely. That's quite about it."

"You actually did that on me, Amore?" Armand protested calmly.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Dorian said nonchalantly while drinking his coffee. "You ran and ran and I didn't give a fuck. I showed you I gave a fuck through my actions dime a dozen and it was enough and you knew it to be so." Then he gestured all-knowingly with a giant grin. "So you started to show you actually gave that fuck you worked so hard in hiding from me."

"You little fiend," Armand said sharply and caught Dorian by the shoulder, bringing him closer to him. He kissed his head as if he were chaste, but with all the fire of warmth he could possibly show.

Fenris had his brows lifted up to Heaven again. He searched in Zevran some kind of protest.

"Don't look at me," Zevran muttered grumpily, shoulders sunk. "I did the same thing. Or she did. I don't quite remember."

"I can guess," Fenris said calmly, drawing up a smirk.

Zevran shrugged. "Tsk." He cupped his chin. "Although I do remember endless nights of throwing myself at her, all while shortly thereafter – after being so viciously refused over and over again – I slowly learned my lesson and backed off a little."

"And then she came to you?" Fenris asked, curious.

"Well, it was inevitable," Zevran said with a cocky grin. "Or so I tried to point out to her afterwards to save it."

"Did it work?" Fenris asked with a laugh.

"No, she said she seduced  _me,_ " Zevran chuckled. "Yes, what a saucy little minx she was. She didn't know it to be true, however."

"But, even so," Dorian intervened. "This is Hawke we're talking about. Just like Zev's girl and my big guy," he said with a grin and glanced at Armand, "they're not people to be  _really_ played with. Trust in your damn little heart. They'll come to you if you let them. Don't stretch it. It's a recipe for destruction."

"Ah, but how can we, when we have such appetite for destruction," Zevran said macabrely in his Antivan accent.

"Though, to be fair, we don't do well with self-destruction," Armand pointed out calmly. He sighed heavily and resumed, "And that brings me to another difficult lesson which only I can truly give to him."

Fenris's ear twitched and he was ready to listen, although growing tired of the endless love lessons.

Armand leaned over the table and gave him a sharp, determined look. "It makes little difference if you kill your master. It doesn't make one shitting copper of a difference." His tone remained very sharp, "Being truly free is in the soul. If you deliberately destroy your soul as if to comfort yourself that you are hopeless, you are doomed. You are doomed and it will be ugly."

Fenris didn't answer. He was swallowing heavily and his hands became shaky, so he quickly hid them in his lap so nobody would see.

"I know how much it cost me. Amore knows too," he continued, giving Dorian a sad glance masked by firmness. His lover nodded only slightly with his eyelids, but only warmth came with it. "And Hawke will know it soon enough."

Scowling even more, Fenris remained silent.

"I am merely saying the truth, I do not mean to scare you out of it," Armand said. "It would be a dumb fucking thing to pull away from something so true and worth our poor little tortured and clueless hearts." Then, to make his statement all the more clearer, he added, "And it would be a fucking insult to our lovers simply because they are ready to take our burden." Then he sighed and shook his head, "Dumb-, dumb fucking thing."

"Dumb it is," Dorian said and went to caress Armand's red hair. "But you were worth the trouble."

"As were you," Armand said with a very warm smile. He took Dorian's hand and kissed it, then squeezed it with a fervor that Fenris wondered if it matched his own or he was simply fooling himself. His mind resolved to block everything from overthinking or shock him, and simply keep watching the two elves in their beautiful romance.

"Ah, love," Zevran said joyfully. "It is not for pure cowards. For half-cowards yes. It turns them into the bravest of men."

"Yeah," Armand said. "You really shouldn't say you love someone unless you mean it." Then he looked at Fenris a bit narrow-eyed. "But if you mean it, you should say it a lot." Then he closed his eyes and shrugged. "People forget."

"Yes, love is when you smile when you're tired," Dorian added tranquilly and glanced at Armand as if he meant him. His returning look confirmed it.

Zevran closed it. "Love is also when you kiss all the time, then when you get tired of a thorough good  _kissing_ , you still want to be together and talk."

"Yeah, we're something like that," Dorian laughed.

"Indeed," Zevran approved, then looked at Fenris and grimaced with sarcasm. "They look gross when they kiss."

"We have each other to kiss," Armand said confidently. "You only have this." He gestured a very polite up-yours finger.

The sun had barely risen and the day had already been full of wonders.

Antiva was  _creepy._ Varric was correct.

But Fenris did have one conclusion, in-between all those raging love definitions his brain was exploding from with utter protest.

Love was, as he suspected, what Armand had done a while ago. He took a single sip of the coffee meant for Dorian before he came to drink it, to see if the taste was just alright.

* * *

**Some minutes later**

Varric and Isabela joined shortly thereafter and brought upon holy salvation even with the adjective not even remotely seeming characteristic to any of them.

When Hawke finally showed up, his jaws, his hands, his everything, landed down to the fiery core of the earth.

Yes, Fenris was about to fall off from his chair. She was wearing a simple blue-greenish sundress in which every pretty little curve of her thrashed and shouted without being revealed almost at all.

As if by an automatism, Fenris removed his leg from the empty chair next to him. Hawke quickly took a seat, as it turned out. He unconsciously conquered it to save it for her.

"Wow, get a load of you. You look so pretty. I hardly recognize you," Isabela said with a wicked smile.

"Sadly for you, I still recognize you," Hawke stung back with a smile.

"Hiss," Isabela mused with a wink.

"Well now," Hawke said cockily. "Still alive… and well?"

"Still and both," Armand said with a chivalrous nod. "And I have you to thank for." His tone was sharp and warm. Truly grateful. No other words were necessary between them.

"No need," Hawke said with a dismissing palm of modesty. "I would have done it with my eyes closed."

"Hawke," Dorian said sharply.

She batted her eyelashes in mockery. "Yes, Dory?"

"I am speaking for both of us, and probably all of the fine people at this table when I say – stop being so fucking modest," he almost shouted. "Accept the thank you. You are a damn good woman."

"I am damn good-looking, yes," Hawke corrected defensively with joy. "Thank you."

"How about some coffee of truth with that smug grin of self-denial," Dorian pressed again with a wink.

"Coffee sounds good," Hawke agreed with a nod.

"You know the difference between right and wrong," Zevran intervened.

"Do I?" Hawke asked innocently.

"You know the difference between right  _and_ wrong," he repeated pressingly. "How do you not rule the world, I cannot possibly conceive. You are a genius, a sage, a giant among men. You have solved the problem which philosophers have been debating since antiquity—the mystery about which no two nations or tribes have ever agreed, and no two men or women have ever agreed, and no intelligent person has ever agreed totally with himself from one day to the next!" Zevran continued in a lively tone. " _You know the difference between right and wrong."_ He raised his hands up in the air.  _"_ I am overawed. I swoon. I figuratively kiss your feet."

She could feel Justice growing green with jealousy all the way from Darktown.

"Why thank you, though no need for such swooning gestures," Hawke said in amusement. "So what's up?"

"Me, Armand and Fenris are now best friends," Zevran said cockily. "Yes, we are quite the funny colorful trio, no?"

"Right. I can tell from the bat wings and the leeches that you three are just all happy-smiles and rainbows," Hawke said with lifted shoulders and a joyful smirk.

"I am the happy one," Zevran said with confident arching brows. "Those two," he gestured, "Well, they're just two of them because they couldn't possibly take me down separately."

"Yes, why don't we test that theory?" Armand asked sharply. He glanced at Fenris. "Care to gag and tie him later?"

"Ah, affection always comes with  _strings_ ," Zevran fired back nonchalantly with a smile.

"Why are you in a dress?" Fenris asked and startled everyone.

The utter silence was broken off by Hawke smiling crookedly and saying, "Well, Lord Seeker of Truth, if you must know, I ran out of clothes."

"Really now?" Fenris asked with a risen eyebrow.

"Yep," Hawke said confidently. "Someone flushed them all."

"Guilty," Isabela said with a shrug.

"Mmmm. I'm sensing a dirty story," Zevran outran Varric in pointing it.

"Not really. Well, if it counts that she saw me naked, then yeah," Hawke said with nonchalance.

Fenris's eyebrow remained there up and paralyzed. Blushing. Much blushing. She didn't seem to notice.

"I knocked her baggage in the bathtub," Isabela said innocently.

"On purpose," Varric added with a nod.

"Well you know how they say – you catch more flies with honey, but drown them straight and you save up on the perishables," Isabela said with playful grin.

"Next time I'm not gonna try saving those  _perishables,_ " Hawke said stingingly with a wink.

"Muah," Isabela blew her a kiss.

Hawke pretended to dodge it entirely.

" _Hiss_ ," Isabela fired nonchalantly.

"Oh, you two are a delight," Zevran noticed with ease.

"We're much more of a delight naked," Isabela said with a grin, while making use of knowing how they both looked like.

"Hm. Well, I must disappoint you," Zevran said with a sigh. "Whatever you lovely temptresses would look like, my eyes automatically hallucinate mi cara and that is all I see from then on to eternity."

"I heard you the first nine times," Isabela said with an edge. "I got your drift."

"Well I'm insistent like that," Zevran said sarcastically, mirroring her own insistence.

"You think too highly of yourself," Isabela said in defense. "For a short person."

"Ah, now why do you sting?" Zevran said in protest and dismissed her with a childish wave. "Tsk.  _Assassinate_ that attitude."

"Well that was a crappy pun," Varric laughed and made a pun himself for mockery, "Which is kind of a pleonastic  _redundancy_."

"I'm all  _pun_ -sexual like that," Zevran said with a shrug.

"Like pansexual, but with a pun?" Hawke asked in amusement. "Pantastic."

"Funny," Varric said cockily. "How about we go back to the higher forms of wit."

"They say that sarcasm is actually the lowest form of wit," Armand said calmly.

Hawke snorted. "Well they've obviously never met me."

"Obviously," Fenris articulated with an unexpected smirk.

"We're all kings and queens of utter sarcasm back in Kirkwall," Hawke said joyfully. "Yep," she gestured, "We check our parachutes and launch ourselves into the Waking Sea of Sarcasm."

"Then when we're feeling  _really_  ambitious," Fenris started with a smirk, "we cut our own strings and fall straight to drown into it like idiots."

"You said  _we_  right?" Hawke asked. "Like, you know that includes you too, I hope?"

"I'm fairly aware," Fenris nodded calmly, pertaining that she had already made her point way back in the bathrooms that it was her duty to tell people they were idiots and he hadn't still forgotten.

"You did not just say that," Hawke almost shouted with a happy smile, which could only mean there was something else lurking about. "I have a feeling we're on the verge of hugging and coming up with cute nicknames for each other."

"Haven't we already done that, Tuffpants?" Fenris asked mockingly.

"Priscilla, please, it's high time we're on a first name basis," Hawke mused back.

"You know what's coming for you if you call me Fenkis," he said with an edge.

"What now?" Isabela asked also with a suspicious edge.

They ignored her quickly. "I wasn't going to call you Fenkis," Hawke laughed. "I was going to fall back on Mister Fister. Well, since it's a first name basis I should only call you Mister. Or is that Fister?"

"Well since you've already  _fallen back_  on that so frequently," Isabela said vaguely, "I'd say it's growing a bit tiring and redundant."

"Nah, it never gets old," Hawke chuckled and dismissed her with a grimace. "It's a classic."

"I  _bet_ it is," Isabela said with narrowed eyes and glanced at Varric, who also dismissed her, because he still didn't believe her.

"Mister Fister!" Zevran shouted. "Ohhh, because of his-" He snorted childishly. "Oh that is a classic."

"He's bright and must be given credit to appoint it a classic upon only first hearing it," Hawke said in amusement.

"I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, yes," Zevran said with a smile, "And yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden," he gestured articulately, "gagging, writhing, agonizing death."

"Right… the guild master. How's that going for you?" Hawke asked curiously.

"Oh, Pas- _caca_?" Zevran asked with an edge. "He's dead."

"Dead?!" almost everyone shouted.

"Yes, when I happened to be looking for our Hawke here in the other half of Antiva City you two hadn't looked in," Zevran started while pointing at Varric and Fenris, "I magically came across the bastard in a dark alley. No, truly," he said calmly and shrugged, "He was startled."

"And?" Hawke asked with lifted eyebrows.

"And so I said Fool!" cried Zevran and he gestured dramatically to match his tone,"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in the North', but only slightly less well known is this," he leaned forward across the table and eyed his audience with the most confident look, "Never go in against an Antivan when death is on the line."

"Ah, you are your mother's trueborn son of Arainai," Armand said sarcastically.

"Am I?" Zevran asked innocently sardonic. "Do tell my father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure that it was she who bore me."

"His grave is too far away," Armand muttered sharply.

"That has never been an inconvenience with you before, my friend," Zevran shrugged.

"I'm growing old, Zev," Armand said with the genuine tone of an older man than he really was.

"We remain children at heart," Zevran smiled joyfully. "Do try and preserve that."

"You're lucky though. I do not even know who my mother was," Armand said a bit bitterly.

"Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are," Zevran said childishly, shrugging up with his elbows on the table.

"PAS- _CACA_ , what happened to him?" Hawke demanded impatiently.

The elf quickly snapped back to reality and resumed his lively story, "Yes! Pasquale! So well, I killed him," he smiled childishly.

"Care to elaborate?" Varric asked with a bit of an edge. He needed to know the story.

"Ah, well, you want to describe how I killed him?" Zevran asked.

Everyone nodded.

"How truly macabre you all are," Zevran said innocently. "Anyway, as I was saying – what was I saying?"

"How you killed Pasqaule," Hawke gestured impatiently.

"Do dead people like music?" Zevran shouted vaguely, but with much ripeness. "I hope they listen to mine if they do, in their coffins, in the cold underworld, between the mind and the body in an insomniac wall of sleep."

When nobody said or gestured anything anymore – since they learned their lesson – Zevran continued his story with a bit of short-lived grump in his cheeks.

"Groin' is a funny word," Zevran said suavely with an evil smile. "'I do not know the Tevinter word for it, but I'm sure you do', I said to him. He began to talk more quickly then, because I could tell he was starting to die.

'So I said to him – "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to Heaven, at the Maker's side or to the Void, to the  _Inferno_ , no. No, no,"' Zevran gestured very calmly.

'You see, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that is where things happen, because, you probably will not believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. The Maker says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Master Pascalus?'

He then gestured dramatically, but in a calm, firm tone, "'All the elves. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got spiky whips and thumbscrews, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them?'"

He formed a fist and resumed, "'Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific.'"

"Pasquale was almost dead by now, but I just had time to get that in, more the lucky I am, yes?"

"'Have a swell eternity,' I said."

"It must have been fifty seconds more before he died." Then Zevran closed it with a short smirk as he stared in blank. "Long time."

"That… was awesome," came Hawke's quite voice as her jaw dropped and her eyebrows were highly lifted.

"I told you I am ridiculously awesome," Zevran shrugged calmly with a little smile.

How positively tranquil he was with all of that. Most curious, Fenris thought. Indeed, it seemed as though there lurked a little triumphant air in Zevran, but mostly it seemed as though he had been truly at peace with it for a long time beforehand.

"So what will you do now?" Fenris asked.

"Well, first things first, I get out of this wretched damned country," Zevran said with a dismissive wave. "And I see mi cara. Yes, first and last thing I will ever do alive."

"How romantic and full of crap," Hawke said joyfully.

"Trust the word of an Antivan, my dear," Zevran said with a grin.

"I can't," Hawke said with a wink. "I know too many Antivans."

"You have come to known the two most true Antivans alive," Zevran said with stretched arms. "Cherish that. Let yourself fall into it."

"I'm afraid she'll get lost in there forever," Fenris surprisingly intervened in a tactful sharp tone.

"This is an Antivan in his true form, my friend," Zevran said with a nod.

Fenris shook his head, "I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point."

"Said the elf with the impossible smug look on his face," Hawke said with a wink.

"What you meant was improbable," Fenris corrected her wiseassely. "It's an improbable look of arrogance."

"And very likely," Hawke added with an edge.

"To be improbable," Fenris finished calmly.

"Ah you must adore this man," Zevran said joyfully. "Aren't you lucky to work and fight with such a charming fellow, come to this restaurant thereafter and drink strong coffee like fine and true warriors, dabble in the wondrous depths of the absolute and whatever else you do when you're not bitching at each other as if you are an old married couple!"

"He's even more charming at home," Hawke said with a smile. "Isn't he, Varric? He rides a unicycle through the house – "

"- even up and down the stairs," Varric added peacefully.

"He juggles eggs as he sometimes makes breakfast for us when we're sick–" Hawke added.

"- which he serves to us in bed of course," Varric added.

"- and pulls fragrant bouquets out of his ass," Hawke finished and smiled towards Fenris. She lifted her shoulders and smiled ever more widely. "He's just a joy."

* * *

**Upon leaving Antiva City, Ponte della Misericordia (Bridge of Mercy)**

"Well, there it is," came Hawke's sighing voice as she turned back to gaze at the marvelous city. "Goodbye, Antiva."

"Let we never come back," Fenris said a bit bitterly.

"Oh, come on, it wasn't all death and despair," Hawke pleaded innocently. "It was more like near death and half-despair."

How true.

"Regardless, I shall never wish to return," Fenris said with an edge as they gazed at the howling rivers and swinging gondolas in the distance. Birds were somewhere flying blind in the persistent fog above them.

"Well, I've got enough cigarillos to last me about ten years. Five, if I do smoke," Hawke mused.

"Five years it is then," Fenris said calmly. "And two or three until that pretty little face will irrevocably fall off."

"If it's because my jaw will land somewhere, well," she gestured, "here, because you might just crack me a damn compliment for once, instead of an insult, then yes."

"It was a compliment," Fenris said in a tone of rather innocent fakeness. "Have you not heard when I said pretty face?"

"I was too busy listening for the pretentious scratch lurking in it," Hawke said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well aren't you paranoid?" Fenris asked grumpily and enclosed his arms. "Maybe if you cease with expecting that pretentious scratch from me, I might just unconsciously stop."

"Maybe if you cease beforehand, I might just stop now and stand corrected," Hawke said calmly, smiling.

"Then I do stand corrected," Fenris said sarcastically, locking his gaze much too passionately calmly onto hers.

Varric's voice came ever sweeter, "Well now, since you stand in the same bridge with one another why don't you two just jump off."

 


	39. Armand's Last Lesson

Zevran had to go back to Denerim, all with apparently attending Bann Teagan's wedding with the Warden. He was getting married to a peasant girl from Redcliffe who they once helped to escape the village and hail to the capital during the Blight. They were, in a way, responsible for their random encounter in Denerim, so they were guests of double-honour at the happy celebration. The mystery with the helping Zevran was in a way, all clear now – Armand was supposed to flee Kirkwall with Dorian and they would reside in Amaranthine under the Warden's protection. The luckiest place an elf could settle in was surely there and as Zevran said it, he welcomed them there for a long time without asking for anything in return but Armand kept refusing until it was clear to him he had a good reason to ensure a happy and safe life. That reason was of course the same with tasting that fourth cup of coffee.

In light of this information, they were quick to give their proper goodbyes to one another, since their easiest way to get to Ferelden in time was by ship. Isabela was most annoyed. Her eyes sparkled with the idea to join them, but then her throat stiffened and she lowered her gaze with an air of sadness as she said she had affairs to handle elsewhere.

Out by the harbor where the ships waited, they took a moment to say those goodbyes. They turned their backs on the ship and glanced at the buildings with domed roofs and bell towers tumbled down the last of Antiva City's hill to the harbor where the torches turned beneath the ornamented arches of an arcade.

As they were walking towards the harbor, Hawke still remained to seem zealous and overjoyed.

"You are welcome to come, my dear, anytime," Zevran said to her with joy. "Well, except spring, summer and fall. Those are the busy travel work days." He sighed and smiled. "Ferelden does have its perks, all with getting stuck inside for some three-four months with snow up to your neck."

"This is the first time I talk about the weather and it's not all chitter-chatter," Hawke chuckled. "By the way, how is it for you to live in Winter Wonderland?"

"Well… for me? Quite alright," Zevran started, then gestured south, "For little Zevran, not so much. He is very  _big_ on honesty you see, and he doesn't like it when he appears to be  _lying_  – and of course he hates shrinking from the cold too. That's also a little problematic."

"How little?" Hawke mused as they walked.

"A little too much for you to take," Zevran winked devilishly.

Suddenly Hawke broke into contained little snorts, all more because she pictured Fenris for some cruelly dumb reason intervening with a cocky, "Oh, I'm sure she can take it" and then scratching the middle of his pants and adding with a sensual little smirk and a nonchalant shrug, "But she's more of a giver". For some other cruelly dumb reason, she was sure it would grow in his character to say it someday. She smiled a little inside, even though she didn't know why that would make her smile.

But snapping back to reality, Hawke pretended to be wounded by Zevran's witty comment and put a hand over her chest, "Oh, if only I were given a chance. Sadly, I have a very big and honest soul, which I hear is kind of a turn-off for you guys."

Zevran smirked and sized the hand on her chest. "Oh, yes _,_  you have a very  _big_ and honestsoul, andno," he winked charmingly, "I assure you it is not a turn-off for us guys." Then he turned his head to the only straight man in the group –besides the spoken for Varric in love with a crossbow, which deemed fairly problematic in the roundness of things – that he could really ask to confirm, "Do you not agree, Fenris?"

He couldn't  _hate_  his name more now as he heard it.

There came an awkward head jerking on Fenris's part as his eyes flinched and his brows joined in a quick ashamed look, but not as awkward as his cheeks that grew evermore redder than Hawke's own radiant hair. He then coughed shortly and drawled, "She is a very honest soul."

"I was not asking about her honesty or her soul, big bad Fenris, Second King to all evasion," Zevran pressed with delight. He was the first king of evasion, probably – which meant, like any self-respecting king, that he was bound to feel terribly absolutist in showing his rivals where they could stick it. Strategic to no end, and which ever graceful talent, he could use a form of attack that they did not specialize in. A form of attack called  **swooping**. Someone very wise in history said something about that, didn't they… Well, no name or person came to mind, but that bastard was very right.

Alas, Fenris stood corrected; he couldn't possibly hate his name more as he heard it the second time. Everyone was looking at him. Varric was giving a very evil risen eyebrow, potentially ever more ready to listen and remember for when he would put it on pen and paper and stamp to doom him for eternity in writing. Isabela was snorting – horrifically – and was perhaps indeed two of those snorts away from blasting her brains out into overjoyed kitty laughter (of which he wouldn't mind – the brain blasting anyway). Dorian was smiling – not grinning – perhaps in sympathy. Armand was nonchalant and appeared to not even listen to them as they walked, which he was grateful for. Hawke was the worst: she had her teeth out like a predator in the biggest most patient and joyful smile of them all. No, the worst would have been if added to that curiously feminine teeth-wide smile she would join her hands like a sweet little girl, all pushing her not so little chest in- and, out. Out of their curvy, very desirable proportions that were pleading and begging him to come and make sure they were just alright, like they were a cup –two cups – of strong delicious coffee, white and consequently stamped and going down with a cold because of the paleness of her nationality.

And so he managed to ruin the meaning and image of Armand's gesture in less than an hour... All while no even caring for it and being too busy wondering what it would be like if they were with Hawke and that pretty little dress all far away in Ferelden in times of cold winter.

Maker, he was going to hell.

As he snapped out and as his throat became ever more stiffened, in light of all this scenery that he resolved to overthink out of proportions, his voice came terribly hoarse and low in tone even as he tried to save it, "You do remind me of my friend Donnic's great nana. Although you still have both your legs."

Hawke broke into laughter and nodded in approval at his quick save. Zevran was disappointed. Everyone else was rolling their eyes. Armand laughed. It was a triumphant day for everyone.

"Well now, if that great nana is as feisty and hot as another great nana I one knew," Zevran saved it too, "You've got yourself a compliment, Hawke."

That great nana was terribly weeping somewhere far far away.

"I take what I can get," Hawke said joyfully. "It's hard to extrude compliments from him."

"And most times you don't even find the compliment in the giant battalion of clawing and thrashing from his muttering," Varric intervened while smirking, speaking from his own experience.

"Santa Madre, for shame!" Zevran exclaimed and raised his arms. "There is a serious shortage of fine bosoms in this world and it would be a terrible pity to damage yours!" He dismissed Fenris with his feisty driven hand. "For shame!"

"Oh dear, I think I stepped in something," Fenris said nonchalantly. He really did step in something.

"Ahah, at any rate," Zevran chuckled and waved with his palm at Hawke. "Until you find the time to visit, I shall first and foremost go straight to mi Cara and tell her all about you."

"Please don't," Hawke said to Zevran. "I mean I'm flattered that you deem me worthy to be told about, but… seeing as I hallucinated her once and ran for the hills to chase a ghost, I don't want her to think I'm a swooning fanatic all cheering and jumping like a psychotic bumble-bee at what a sweet delight she obviously is in my head." Sweet delight to snort and laugh to death if she ever found out.

"I will try," Zevran said with a smile. "But I cannot promise anything. After all, I can never really forget bosoms of such great importance. And no, do not go all accusations and disapproving looks on me!" He raised his wiseass index finger to match his confident grin. "What you did not get to hear yet is that I am quite the gentleman – in that I also manage to  _always_  remember and associate the name and the face with the legendary bosom." He winked. "This, I swear."

Indeed, someone in history was also crying from a faraway land from Zevran's comment.

"More so because you never did actually associate 'legendary' with 'bosom' more than twice in your life," Armand quickly ruined it.

"Well they did need to know that!" Zevran exclaimed and shot Armand a grumpy look.

"Well…" Hawke started and shrugged, "Goodie."

"Do not be grumpy, my dear," Zevran protested calmly. "It does not suit your lively face and those big radiant eyes."

"Oh, but my how my eyes look don't make much of a difference, do they?" Hawke muttered.

"I plead and beg for you to smile my dear," Zevran said charmingly. "In all seriousness, do smile."

Hawke gave Armand a look as if to question if he was serious. Armand confirmed with nodding his eyelids that he was indeed serious.

She rolled her eyes, tried to picture Zevran gagged and locked with a chastity belt and finally smiled. "Better now?"

"I am overjoyed and I figuratively swoon," Zevran praised charmingly.

"Great. I'm a joy of life I am," Hawke muttered in amusement.

"Ah, the modest sighs of one's despair," Zevran said with a sigh, "Truly you cannot be more unreasonable than life itself is."

"Yeah, life is unfair," Hawke shouted grumpily and while having unperturbed eyes, she quickly raised her arms above her head and snapped her fingers. "Olé!"

Zevran then broke into laughter and fell on the ground while holding his stomach.

"What got over him?" Varric asked with a risen eyebrow.

"I made an honest man out of him," Hawke said in victory.

* * *

**A few minutes later**

Beneath the last arch, for a moment, Zevran and Armand took Fenris by the side.

"Yes?" Fenris drawled as the two men cornered him with their peculiarly serious gazes.

"We have something for you," Armand stated like a general.

The rustling sound of the leaves and the birds flying away up above was the answer he gave them.

Not a man of unnecessary words himself, Armand undid something at the back of his neck and let loose a necklace out from beneath his coat. Fenris had already forgotten about that trinket, having only once spotted it around his neck in camp when he kept his vest wide open because of the heat from the fire pit. Even then, he didn't have much time to notice all with being too busy hating him in his mind that he was more muscular than he was.

He held the simple silver chain in his hand, leaving a small darker locket in the form of a narrow leaf to dangle in the air. He quickly raised a questioning eyebrow and gazed in confusion at a very serious-looking Armand.

"It's nothing, but consider it a thank you offering," Armand muttered with a slow nod. "And do not worry, we gave Hawke and Varric something too."

"… Alright," Fenris drawled and took the necklace in his hand.

"When you open it, you'll see that I put a thread of my luscious hair in it for safekeeping," Zevran chattered innocently. "You know, if you ever wish to remind yourself that you must really do something with that stubborn jerking of your bangs. That or simply to remember how awesome I am."

Fenris quickly shook his head and gave Zevran a look full of protest and disbelief as the elf was quickly moving his eyebrows up and down with a saucy grin.

"He's kidding," Armand quickly said with a ghost of smile.

"I hope," Fenris uttered calmly. He slowly lowered his gaze to the object in his hand and then looked back at him. "Does it do anything?

"If you're thinking runes of nature or fire or some other ancient abracadabra, then no," Zevran said rather calmly.

Armand gave the locket a simple look and raised his tired eyes back to Fenris. "I kept it with me for as long as I can remember. Whatever it does, it seems to have worked."

"Then why give it up?" Fenris demanded quietly.

The corner of Armand's lips extended only briefly and his eyelids fell halfway. "I don't need it anymore."

"Oh?" Fenris asked. He looked at again to study it and muttered unemotionally, "Is it some personal symbol of freedom?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Armand said firmly in his sharp tone. "Just keep it."

Fenris nodded knightly in acceptance. Then his right eye moved quickly to Zevran. "You said  _we_."

"Did we?" Zevran asked playfully. "I don't quite remember."

"I'm sure," Fenris uttered with a smile. He had already gotten used to the elf's way of handling things.

"It is the royal we," Zevran tattled with a wink.

"Zev," Armand growled and gave him a look.

"What? You know I am not good with goodbyes," Zevran protested in a serious tone.

"Quit your yackety-yak and ask him your question," Armand commanded unemotionally.

Zevran raised an eyebrow as if he didn't know what he was talking about. Quickly something sparkled in his eye and he resumed, "Ah, yes. Dal vuoto, how I can forget!" He approached Fenris and coughed a bit awkwardly.

"You wish to give me kissing lessons too?" Fenris snarled in a bit of irriation.

"Not unless-  _OUCH,_ " he quickly screamed and turned to Armand who probably pinched him from the back with all the relentlessness of his gauntlet. "Idiota, I was going to say not unless you wish mi Cara to harrow Hell over both of us all away from Ferelden. She will know it before I get to pull my pants up."

"Why would you need to pull your … pants up?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"I don't know how you do kissing, my friend, but when I do it they always come down," Zevran laughed joyfully. "Oh, but do not judge me so quickly," Zevran said and raised a flirtatious cocky eyebrow. "It is not I who does the- _OUCH._ " He turned to Armand and gave him a murderous look.

Armand remained calm and shrugged with an air of innocence, "Time is running out."

"Life is pain and all, but I would appreciate it if at least my calendars were gentle," Zevran protested while rubbing his back. He turned back to Fenris and resumed calmly, "At any rate, I need to ask you a question that I feel would be dangerous to ask Hawke, all with being sure she will storm the city gates of Amaranthine soon enough now that my 'yackety-yak' mouth also gave her a welcome _whenever_."

"Alright…" Fenris nodded calmly, giving him permission to continue.

Zevran nodded back politely and resumed with a waving gesture, "I have forgotten about it entirely all with the escaping near death and Hawke getting lost in the city and with all the helpful speeches about love I have honored you with as a professional-"

"All the -speeches-, yes," Fenris corrected calmly.

Zevran chuckled and resolved to give him right, then continued, "-and so I forgot about your dwarven friend mentioning an…" his eyes became a bit darker and his brow arched up sharply, "… Anders."

From the very quick response of Fenris's eyes rolling and reaching the back of his head, Zevran nodded in empathy, "Ah, so 'tis true, it is  _that_ Anders."

"I can only assume from the scorn in your saying 'that Anders', that you know him rather well?" Fenris asked.

"I've always been held as a rather sympathetic and fortunate person," Zevran said calmly. "Which is why I equally cherish my luck that he is gone from my life as much as I pity that he fell into yours. All six feet of  _bull_ that he is."

Fenris broke into laughter for a moment. It startled Zevran. Then his amused face quickly died and he raised a questioning eyebrow, "You are not just being dramatically funny, are you?"

"Unfortunately, this time I am not," Zevran sighed. He waved a dismissive hand. "He is an evil little fiend, and while I quite frankly do not waste time despising people, this one really begged for it."

Fenris chuckled again and said, "I am beginning to think his leaving the Wardens was involuntary."

"It can be argued. It is a long story. But even so, he was lucky. I was close to viciously beat the _crap_  out of him at the time. Fortunate for him, that I am such a gentleman," Zevran said with a hand over his heart.

"I am familiar with that honorable abstinence," Fenris agreed calmly.

"Well, now," Zevran said in curiosity, "I cannot imagine how or why he decided to be a pain in  _your_ ass."

"However shockingly, it wasn't voluntary," Fenris said calmly, shaking his head. He crossed his arms and asked, "But why would he get on  _your_ nerves? You don't seem the kind to pay heed to such things, as you said."

Zevran rolled his eyes, "Tsk. Why do you think?" He crossed his arms and scowled. "I'll give you a good guess."

"I am terrible at guessing," Fenris said calmly.

Armand finally intervened with rolling his own eyes, "What is the  _only_ thing in the world that can make Zevran storm the gates of the Dark City itself for with all the viciousness and cruelty of a crazed serial killer?"

"I'm sensing that's a rhetorical question," Fenris drawled with a risen eyebrow.

"And much redundant," Zevran pressed with an annoyed scowl. Fenris didn't say anything, so Zevran sighed and waved his hand in irritation, "Cara."

Fenris was about to say something, but Zevran stopped him with unyielding annoyance, "And do not play fool and say you do not know what cara means." To that, Fenris raised an eyebrow and Zevran closed his eyes while shrugging very innocently, "It is an insult to me."

He seemed serious. "Did he do something to her?" Fenris asked.

"I didn't let him have the chance," Zevran growled in annoyance. "Ah, he abused of his rank and her friendship enough as it is. But even so, it matters little now for me. Pay no heed to my irritation."

"You had a question… about an hour ago," Fenris said in amusement.

"How true," Armand said with a little smile.

"How true indeed," Zevran confessed and looked down. "I want to ask you how he is doing."

"Do you frequently take interest in the health of the ones you despise?" Fenris asked a bit mockingly.

"Hm. I did say my mind goes more often than not into the land of planning writhing and agonizing deaths for my enemies," Zevran mused, coming back only briefly to a joyful attitude. Slowly he became serious again and asked, "My question pertains to what he is doing there, what his intentions are. And more importantly,  _what_ is he now?"

Then the meaning finally arrived in Fenris's sanctum of reason. He lowered his gaze and sighed, "Ah, you mean the merging with the spirit part." He crossed his arms defensively. "I will have to disappoint you. I know little about what he is, although I strongly wager that what he calls himself ," he gestured mocking quotation marks, " _spirit healer,_ is just a fancied up term for abomination."

"What does Hawke think?" Zevran pleaded in a bit of a heightened tone. "I mean, she is a –"

Fenris raised his palm to stop him and articulated quietly, "Keep your voice down when you associate her name with the next thing you were going to say. She's not a common whatshername back home anymore and it's dangerous even in these parts to speak about it."

"Forgive me. You are most reasonable," Zevran agreed chivalrously. "And see," he chuckled and gestured, "that right there is what a truthful helping hand is. I don't think our lessons were necessary."

"No, I suspect it was purely for your entertainment, all with laughing at the clueless escaped slave in love," Fenris snarled grumpily while crossing his arms and leaning with his back on the wall. Good thing that he did lean on something, because he quickly stiffened as he realized the last words he had muttered.  _Kaffa_ was the shortest and most articulate curse his faltering mind could come up with.

Zevran chuckled and raised a triumphant eyebrow, "You said it, not us."

Quickly killing the next thought in his mind, Fenris resolved to go back to their original point. He waved his hand in his crossed-arms posture as he explained, "We had a discussion over it once. I remember her saying that there are no records of mages coalescing with spirits, and therefore it is presumed that there have hardly been any incidents like this in history –because spirits are opposed to leaving the Fade and Justice was, in turn, cast out of it by some possessed-mage-soul-abomination-," he pressed his lips, "whatever."

"I know this part too, but one could only wonder," Zevran said a bit in sorrow. His gaze lowered as if he remembered something and tried to hold the memory. "I knew a very good woman once.  _Know,_ but we do not get to see her very often now. Her name is Wynne."

"I know that name," Fenris said quickly, but took a moment to remember where he had heard it. "She was with you when you defeated the Blight."

"Yes, she was, on the tower itself when the Archdemon fell. Her courage and dedication were… simply put, unfaltering and eternal," Zevran said in warm voice. "And her bosom, even more."

"Does her bosom have anything to do with this story?" Fenris demanded while rolling his eyes.

"No, no, not really," Zevran said with a smile. "I will stick to what's important. Even if her bosom is also of grand importance."

"Do go on," Fenris said. "With the story."

"Well you see, when the Circle fell and we came to save it, she died trying to defend the apprentices. Or so she said, anyway," Zevran explained. Fenris frowned a bit and continued listening, "And once she told us that a Spirit of Faith was what saved her. That it simply entered her body, enveloped her in a warming light and she started feeling the cold hard ground again in less than a second. And so, even if she never really stated it as such, it was testament that her time was not done and her duty was to save the Circle and help  _us_  with the Blight."

"And?" Fenris asked, a bit interested now.

"And so she did. With a lot of faith that we would bring the darkspawn to their knees," Zevran said joyfully, remembering, but then he dismissively gestured, "Not some idiotic blind faith of course. She gave us strength and faith from her years. She was very wise, and very beautiful for her age."

"Sticking to the story," Armand intervened with a little smile.

"Thank you ever so much for keeping me focused, Armand," Zevran said calmly. "And so, well, it never occurred to me to think that something was wrong. That what happened was unnatural or evil. And it was not!" Zevran exclaimed seriously. "It is different though, because that is much more miraculous – a spirit that deliberately came for her rescue. I think that's what made her uncorrupted by it. She did not say anything about the spirit talking in her head or some other sorcery."

"That is not the case with  _this_ one," Fenris protested with discomfort, uncrossing his arms. "He says it talks in his head. Or they are only one now, or," he dismissed with his palm in anoyance, "whatever."

"Sad, is it not?" Zevran said with half-lidded sorrowful eyes. "Wynne said she was an abomination living on 'borrowed time' to help us." He pressed his eyes and snapped out of his trance. "What does  _he_ do?"

"He treats people in an underground clinic," Fenris said, and with a bit discomfort, he added, "For free."

"Well, now," Zevran said with a rapid scowl. "That is quite uncharacteristic of him. No, that is completely ridiculous."

"Why?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"Because he was nothing more than a big selfish scoundrel as I remember him. And lucky, like me, to escape the ones that were after him," Zevran said despicably. He shrugged with his arms crossed, "I know the type."

"Well you seem to be quite the honest good-doer these days," Fenris gestured towards him in a half-mocking tone, quickly thereafter feeling like hitting himself in the head for appearing to defend Anders.

"Ah, well, I am good at heart," Zevran protested and shrugged. "Surely you can appreciate the difference."

"Surely I can appreciate some light over what your question really is," Fenris pressed.

"I don't quite know, to be honest," Zevran confessed. "I mean, surely what I know is that I never wish to have anything to do with him again. You know, never  _see_ him again," he pressed, pertaining to his wife. "She had enough trouble at his doing."

"What did he do?" Fenris demanded.

"A Templar infiltrated the Wardens in their ranks and sought to arrest him for being an abomination. He said that the Wardens agreed upon it." Then he sighed. "Sadly, that piece of news did not arrive to the ears of her  _authority._ "

"I'm beginning to sense this is going nowhere pleasant," Fenris muttered.

"She was all in favor to defend him, of course," Zevran said with a bit of scorn in the last part. "But instead of listening to her and end the thing peacefully, he and that all-knowing soooo righteous  _spirit_ decided it was indeed, time to take," he gestured mocking quotation marks, " _justice_ , in their hands." Zevran then shook his head and sighed in exasperation. "He killed the Templar  _and_ the Wardens. It was very ugly afterwards. He fled the Keep and left her with all the pointing fingers."

"…What a  _shithead_ ," Fenris articulated in surprise. The term he used just as much surprised the men.

Zevran quickly chuckled and waved his palm, "I never do with calling people this – for obvious reasons – but he does deserve all the fullness of scorn in being called  _whoreson._ "

"I am inclined to agree," Fenris muttered with a crooked smile. "Fortunately for my nerves, I am already used to him. He began to work with us about the same time when I joined Hawke and Varric."

"They are friends?" Zevran demanded with a bit of disgust. "Oh, no, please do not tell me he manipulates her too."

"Manipulates?" Fenris asked in surprise, frowning urgently. "I would not call whining and rambling in tones of a strangled soprano," he gestured mockingly, "about mages deserving to be free to a yawning Hawke, well, successful manipulation, to say the least."

Zevran started laughing with joy at his mockery and joined his palms, "I knew I adored you! Now I adore you even more!"

"Adore me some more with telling me if I should be worried," Fenris pressed in alarm.

"Well… you said something about the cheering for the liberation of mages, did you not?" Zevran asked while cupping his chin. "A scumbag apostate and manipulative son of a bitch possessed by a crazy spirit of justice and a hungry force for vengeance. Now you can appreciate the redundancy in the expression 'You can put two and two together'."

"Well… Santa Madre…" Fenris muttered with scorn, and came up from leaning against the wall.

" _Bastardo_ ," Zevran articulated with narrowed eyes.

"You think he has a hidden agenda?" Fenris asked urgently.

"No. Yes. Well," Zevran tattled, crossing his arms. "Keep an eye on him."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Fenris said firmly. He looked back to the harbor at Hawke who was laughing in joy with the others. Then he turned his head back to Zevran. "You have to tell  _her._ "

"Well, she is a –" Zevran stopped and nodded with pressed lips to deem the next term as self-explanatory. "So you should start praying he will not convince her to do something stupid." He sighed, "After all, I was very serious when I told her that she could rule the world if she so wished. She could outmaneuver entire armies if she so wished. She is the same as my darling wife in this respect."

"Well, how very fortunate for everyone that they lack the desire to abuse of their strength," Fenris said honestly.

"People and love are afraid of change, more than they are of their destruction. But both can also be very courageous in welcoming change when their needs take an unexpected toll. So in that respect, do not forget which you wish to savor. If you want it to last, or you want to destroy it. Change is not always a good thing," Zevran said very seriously. "Sometimes it is unfortunately necessary."

"A necessary evil?" Fenris asked perceptively. He snorted heavily, "Ptfeh. You are stretching this philosophy. If we bring your point back to our little abominable 'friend', this sounds as if he could become an activist once and a legend thrice. Forgive me if I don't foresee him having a legendary future."

"By healing gutter tramps in an underground clinic? No," Zevran nodded with a grin. "By abusing of the wealth, influence and compassion of a praiseworthy friend… You may want to tie and gag him now even if this idea has not yet tickled his scurvy little mind."

"She is not  _that_ wealthy and influent," Fenris said in a bit of relief. "Her compassion, well," he jerked his eyebrows and lowered his gaze, "We should feel grateful that she is utterly divorced from magic, even with her compassion."

"It is good to have a moderate, balanced conception of things," Zevran said with a smile. "It is also good to be tied down to a higher duty, as not to feel too driven and free to do as that compassionate heart pleases." He lowered his gaze and smiled. "If not for being Commander of the Grey, one could only imagine what sort of wonders this impossible little woman could do." He shook his head and stared in blank, "Storming a tower full of abominations and blood mages, and oh, such butt-ugly demons," he laughed, "She would have done it with her eyes closed and her hands tied. And without being arguably forced into it because of requiring help from all over the nation. BUT, it was her duty. It was good."

"Well… I promise I will remain alarmed until she joins the Guard or something to justify her actions," Fenris replied a bit insipidly.

"No, my friend, do not be so alarmed," Zevran said with a tranquil little smile. "Like I said, we do good when it needs to be done. We do not search for it, to feel like some dignified saints. We are simply found by evil and in that moment only do we make it our duty to fight it. I do not think Hawke would mean to  _start_ anything, be it good or evil."

"How very true," Fenris agreed calmly.

"Well then," Zevran inhaled heavily, then straightened up like a knight. He took an honoring bow and nodded with his eyelids, "It was a pleasure to meet you and get your help. And be saved by you. Twice, if I recall. I always seem to forget these things," he said innocently and then his voice became macabre, "Not as much as I recall exactly how many people I kill."

As Fenris raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his dramatic line, Zevran smirked innocently, "I compete for points, you see."

Fenris chuckled and nodded for a goodbye, then Zevran turned, but gave him another quick wink, "Do try not to fall into a trap," he said; only after added, "Or learn to wear boots. I hear the fashion now is blue and red velvet with peacock trinkets."

"Z- Zevran," Fenris drawled.

"Zev," he said. "Please. I am Zev to my friends," he said as he turned around.

"R-right," Fenris said and coughed shortly. He nodded in chivalry, "Benevis fedari, Zev. May the ground rise to meet your feet."

"Si vive una volta sola, ma se lo fai bene, una volta è sufficiente," Zevran uttered in a proud voice. "You only live once, but if you do it  _right_ , once is enough." He then went down the path for the harbor to join the others. Armand remained still.

Fenris looked at him and was a bit faltered with questioning. Armand looked as much tranquil as he did zealous, with a curious air of compassion or warmth refracting out through the cracks of his indomitable expression. He stood with his arms crossed and shared their look for a moment.

"You wish to ask me something too?" Fenris asked calmly, not in the mood anymore to crack some joke up about performing surveys or inane prodding. He owed a lot to this man and though he wouldn't admit it, Fenris was a bit anguished and remorseful with the thought that they would probably never meet again.

"I told you I had Lesson no.2 for the little bitch to go forth with stepping on the higher ranks of happy bitch," Armand said with a taunting grin which only made his sharp tone more dominant now.

"You must have given my evil twin all the other happy-bitch lessons," Fenris mused with a little smirk.

"No, those were for stepping to the ranks of only bitch," Armand said sharply and jerked his head. "And they were in my charming friend's company, so we did not get anywhere much anyway."

"Do tell, Cupid," Fenris said with the fullness of an amused expression.

"Who?" Armand asked with a risen eyebrow.

"Your masters back in Vol Dorma have obviously not had a pointless soft spot for ancient heathen creeds and an even more annoying habit of rambling about it day and night. Sometimes, I truly wondered if I preferred the dungeon and shackles to that inane prattle," Fenris muttered bitterly. It was confusing, and most horrifying, that he felt at ease to joke with Armand about their plight. Perhaps because he understood, it didn't feel like it was such a crime to remember only for a second and treat it as if it were nothing.

Armand crossed his arms and grinned. "Do tell, Wiseassus Maximus."

"Cupid? Oh, some powerful desire demon, no doubt," Fenris quickly cut it. "One which happens to look completely undesirable."

Armand chuckled and sighed. "Alright. Lesson no.2, yes?"

"I am all pointy ears," Fenris growled with a smirk. Why did he feel so amused with himself all of a sudden? Was it because Armand was inarguably much stronger and wiser than him, thus he felt like a child? That this man was perfectly free now, and his tale was over. There was no more malice or discord to torture his life, and it appeared as though there was none of it in his soul either. So perhaps, on the contrary, his tale was only just beginning. The "happy-bitch" life; he had it all. Fenris resolved to dispatch all of this from his mind.

"When I gave you the first lesson, in camp all those days ago, I told you if it doesn't work, I will take issue to give you the second, yes?" Armand said.

"It hasn't worked, and you did," Fenris pressed redundantly.

Armand laughed. "Of course it hasn't worked. That's why I gave the bad lesson first."

"You did  _what_?" Fenris almost shouted, anger painting all around his furrowed brows and the boiling vein on his forehead.

"You first had to see what you do not want to do," Armand said. He shrugged nonchalantly, "Without overdoing it of course. I am not an idiot and I am not evil."

"No, you're only a slightly bit evil," Fenris said, mirroring Armand's short and clever jokes which pertained that he was still an idiot.

"Oh, I'm so offended," Armand muttered with half-lidded eyes. "Notwithstanding, I first have to tell you something else."

Fenris crossed his arms. "Well, with my gross credulity at your words, you might just call me a dwarf and I'll nod in agreement and walk on my knees."

Armand laughed and startled him. "Now that would be an image – "

" – that is improbable to happen," Fenris pressed, so he wouldn't get any ideas. "Now that I no longer am overly open to conviction with you and your earthshattering suggestions."

"Oh, you will. Pay me heed," Armand pleaded confidently. "You will not be sorry."

Fenris snorted, "That's what Hawke told me before we entered the Bone Pit."

"You are alive," Armand rolled his eyes.

"Not the mine in Kirkwall. The luxury whorehouse here," Fenris articulated grumpily.

Armand snorted. "She took you to the Bone Pit?"

"She was hungry and it was late," Fenris said, all while trying not to smile.

"Alright," Armand chuckled hoarsely. "Well. Words seem to fail me now. It's most curious." He lowered his gaze and seemed to ponder or search for something in his mind. He pressed his eyes shortly thereafter and his face changed into very sharp and shrewd, with the fullness of dominance. "Breathe. Breathe a little and start enjoying your life. There will be time for horrors such as this that you witnessed with me. But you should not fear and worry in-between." Armand then gave him a very broad, illuminated and down-right startling smile. "Because your friends will be there for you. Your friends are there," he gestured towards the harbor, where Hawke was still laughing joyfully and clutching onto Varric's shoulder for balance as he was impersonating Senechal Bran and his pretentious little risen eyebrow. Fenris couldn't help but smile at the sight, before Armand snapped him out of that warm trance and caught his eyes, "They will be there to share your burden, as well as be there when time comes to battle your worst nightmare. They will always be there."

It then occurred to him that Armand was the only one who didn't seem alarmed when Zevran told the story of killing Pasquale. He was there with him, just as Zevran was in the catacombs, but he let his friend tell the story as if he were the only one there because he knew that Zevran liked telling stories and it would make it all the more dramatic and compelling when he told the dramatic speech about all the elves ready in the purgatory with spiked whips and thumbscrews waiting for Pasquale before he killed him. That was friendship, as he noticed, just as love was when he took that one sip of coffee to be sure it was alright.

"You just have to  _be there_  too, for that," Armand said firmly. He narrowed his eyes and heightened his face with half-lidded eyes to catch the image of his fellow escaped slave's understanding. "Are you friend enough for them to stay, Fenris?"

Fenris glanced at the harbor slowly and caught Hawke's eye as she was looking at him from a distance. She quickly smiled and waved, then stuck her tongue out at him. Tickled to death, that's how happy she looked when she did it. Ever more radiant she seemed, and joyful and ripe; cascade of red tumultuous hair and big, cheerful hazel eyes, testament to her dual colorful nature – and it had nothing to do with the dress. Immersed into that vault of heaven she exuded, Fenris didn't even notice he was smiling back; and a wide smile it was.

"Vivere è la cosa più rara al mondo. La maggior parte della gente esiste, ecco tutto," Armand finally said in a botched Antivan accent and snapped him out.

"Meaning?" Fenris demanded as though he hadn't made up at least part of it.

"To live is the rarest thing in the world," he said firmly, then sized Fenris up sharply, "Most people exist, that is all."

He looked again in the distance and pondered on it for a while. He hadn't felt like he did more than simply existing for a long time; this was very true. Twice he did feel he lived, and one of those times was still continuing today. And this second time it felt like he would crumble to the pits of the Void if it didn't last. He resolved it in his mind that somehow – however surprisingly optimistic of him, but not at all uncharacteristic to his dedication – he would make it last.

"And once the game is over, the king and the pawn go in the same box," Armand said and snapped him out of his trance again. "And you may automatically think I mean that your master or the humans are no better than you as an elf or an escaped slave, but," he stopped to catch his gaze and lock it there, "It also means you are no better than them if you lose yourself and treat the world, or yourself, with scorn."

"An interesting way to put it," Fenris commented and pondered on it. He coughed shortly. "You may be right."

"I am always right," Armand said while smirking arrogantly. He closed his eyes. "And you can hear Amore by the harbor giving me the finger now."

Fenris broke into laughter. It didn't startle the other anymore.

Then he looked as if he was pondering on something. "Hmm. Cara… Amore…" Fenris gestured almost philosophically and then he smiled as he muttered, "The pet names we gave to each other revolve around clown and troll mages for her and magic-fisting cockatoos and blue-glowing snowglobes for me."

"And you know why that is?" Armand asked sharply, catching Fenris's gaze with insistent eyes.

"We're… funny people?" Fenris muttered with an honestly nonchalant shrug.

The next thing in turn startled Fenris now, Armand laughing very loudly. A lot, and echoing up towards Kirkwall, with the strength and deepness of a bass, Armand laughed with joy and almost satanically, then finally finished with as his eyelids fell halfway and his laughs ended in a very sharp, mocking and disgustful, " _Eeeghh._ "

Fenris didn't say anything, all too impressed and confused, and a bit frightened. The next thing startled him even more. Armand inhaled like a crazed bull and his sharp eyes narrowed as he approached him.

"Lesson no. 2," he uttered articulately in his walk. A bit unsettled, Fenris leaned on the wall because Armand didn't stop at the polite distance. As his back touched the wall, Armand rested his hand against it near Fenris's head and his dominant gaze locked onto him, all alight with the rays of the Sun arching past his red hair and his green eyes. Then, with all the abruptness and imperative of tone, Armand uttered the shortest and clearest sentence in history that did not need any over-openness for conviction, "Tell her how you feel."

* * *

**Sunset, Ponte della Misericordia (Bridge of Mercy)**

"Well, since you stand in the same bridge with one another, why don't you two just jump off," Varric's voice said sweetly.

Hawke broke into laughter, but before she could add some funny joke to her witty raised gesturing hand, something interrupted it.

"Oh, what a fine idea," came Fenris's voice melodically. He grabbed Hawke's hand all of a sudden and dragged her to the balustrade, to everyone's surprise. "What do you say?" He jerked his head and grinned widely, "Shall we do the dwarf a favor?"

Hawke didn't protest, instead cupped her chin and smiled fiendishly all with Fenris still holding her hand, "Hm. I do owe him a favor after dragging him to the catacombs, 'tis true."

"Are you kidding? Who's gonna drive the carriage when the horses are much more likely to throw me by the rope and into the evergreen forests?" Varric quickly shouted. "Isabela, Captain of the Two-Three Raindrops of the Only Slightly Moist Road-Dirt?"

"How sad," Hawke said while still smiling. "Perhaps she could make do with sailing with the carriage across the sea that your tears are going to make over losing us, yes?"

"Tears of laughter, I assure you," Varric said confidently and crossed his arms. "This is the most scandalizing image I have ever seen of you two in."

"I've seen worse," Isabela muttered with a risen eyebrow. Varric gave her a look of dismissal with his grimace, so she concluded it would be best not to assault Hawke and Fenris with the truth now that they were standing on the edge of a bridge. They might just jump before they confessed anything.

"You have three seconds to admit you can't live without us," Hawke said confidently. She squeezed Fenris's gauntlet and leaned shortly over the balustrade. "Three…"

"Quit it, Pantaloons," Varric muttered sharply.

"Two…" Fenris exclaimed all-devilish grinning.

"That includes you too, Sir Broodsalot," Varric growled with his arms crossed.

"One and a half, one and a quarter," Hawke said rapidly and they both bent strongly on the balustrade smiling at each other through their teeth.

Varric uncrossed and raised his arms and lowered his head. "Pfeww I take it back, I take it back, jeez. I can't live without you two! There." Then he stretched his arms and muttered, "Throw in a  _fuck you_ , too while I'm at this love declaration in the fluffy capital of romance and rainbows. NOW LET'S GET THE FLUFF OUT OF HERE."

"I suppose a heartbreaking scene where we all hug on the Bridge of Friendship is too much to ask, isn't it?" Hawke chuckled as she came with Fenris back at them.

"It's the Bridge of Mercy," Fenris corrected and rubbed his chin."Which is still very dramatic in itself, since we have subdued ourselves to Varric's."

"Yeah, you're at my mercy, bitches," Varric growled charmingly. "So if anyone fucks with me again and forces rainbows and unicorns out of my sparkly dwarven fairy self, you can take it shooting with sprinkles out of my fluffy dwarven ass when you give it a nice kissing," he said and gestured to his butt mockingly.

"Oh, not the  _sprinkles,_ " Hawke gasped and put a hand over her heart. "We don't want that now, do we, Fenris?" she asked joyfully as he caught her gaze and smiled

"You can never take a dwarven fairy's words lightly when they're threatening with sprinkles," Fenris said calmly.

"Well then, I guess you can move your worthless asses to the carriage now and get the fuck out of here," Varric said with a charming wink.

"Did I hear right?" Hawke pretended to eavesdrop. "I don't think I heard it right, Fenris. Did you?"

"I am very certain he said 'the fluff out of here'," Fenris mused all-grinning.

The dwarf turned their back and walked as he uttered, "Aw, that's sweet – you two musing about two of the things that begin with the same letter," he turned his head and winked, "that both of you have _absolutely no idea_  about," he finished firing back joyfully.

They would have protested, but, it began to occur to them a few seconds too late that the "absolutely no idea" part was more articulated by Varric not because he knew for fact that they were canoodling behind his back (which he didn't) or that they were some kind of utterly unemotional or purely chaste people, but because –as it turned out, Fenris and Hawke, all grinning in their glory... had  _absolutely no idea_  that they were still holding hands.


	40. Look Deep Into My Eyes

Yep, I'm drunk again... go figure.

But let's make a pact - I'll exasperate you now with my drunken rant and my narration of just one stupid memory from on the road, because there's this impending, incredible, absolutely legendary episode where EVERYONE goes drunk as a nug and colossally ridiculous - on Varric's birthday. Now THAT is going to be a LONG night. Which is when we get to Kirkwall. So bear that in mind, that I will not interfere there (you'll finally see how I look like for the others drunk so prepare to fall from your chairs laughing at me while I smile involuntary at your pain just as well) and you can bitch and curse at me now because I can surely take it! I am quite sturdy. Wait, no, that's Fenris. What I am is stubborn.

Don't love me? Well, I'm filled with love for you either way. You remember I'm like super-good and stuff, right? Yeah, I didn't believe me either.

When I was a small girl, I had a terrible dream. I dreamed that my father, my mother, my sister and my brother, one by one, died. Every frame of the dream held one of their bodies as a horrific effigy, like a ghost, and they haunted me in my head and my eyes burned. They were quick still, and mute, with big, closed eyes, and pale cheeks, and so horrified was I that I could make no more of a sound that they could.

That dream, in a way, came true; which is just as mortifying.

Rather credulous at heart, I thought that they would live forever. Not I, of course, I mean just them. I resolved, rather like an over the hill hit in the head romantic, to forever hold their portrait in my heart, until my last breath. Father with his overly arrogant, paradoxically just as modest attitude and humorous take on life and all things dire, Mother exuding the vault of heaven itself with her love and patience, Bethany with her incredibly playful, soft and feminine air of "I own your ass and you don't even know it" and Carver with his very lively and boyish urgency to do - to do everything and anything. And the rest of the world can go fuck itself. You may not have a good opinion about him, but you don't really know him as I do. He can be rather charming. When he wants to. It's a Hawke thing. Don't read too much into it.

I always thought I would die young. Now it seems that... I really don't know how to die. I haven't survived as well as I should, but that's the thing - people like me, like Fenris, like Zevran, like Armand, like Anders, even Varric... they know they'll survive. I'm not talking vanity blown out of proportions or some smug sense of indestructibility... it's an unconscious feeling, a dormant reality, a whisper in the shadows or maybe just some kind of separate feeling breathing in and out in some alternate dimension of our being that simply thrives, throbs, creeks, scratches... and lies just as still and quiet to our ears.

And it keeps us here.

It's not something easy to live with. To exist with... well that's damned easy. It's very damned easy to live for yourself and breathe only for yourself, and the rest of the world just doesn't matter.

I'm not one of those people. But hell, life goes on, right? It's just as easy to immerse and lose yourself in pointless philosophies and brooding contemplations.

By anyone's standards, I am a remarkably ... stupid mage, most powerful with a sword, add magic to it and all hell breaks lose. But I know I'm still good and I can be even better, and even the angels and spirits will attest to my powers, if you can get them to speak to you. Be cautious on that point. I'm drunk and I go haywires with joking about myself in somewhat shadowy tones. Even I don't know exactly when I'm serious and when I am not.

I have, however, nothing whatsoever to do with the Covens of Libertarian Mages, or some other bullshit group of Enchanters, or some vein-on-the-forehead-boiling hidden apostate groups for that matter... bands of romantic mages from the Circle in Ferelden all the way to pretentious, radiant, phlegmatic Spire of Val Royeux, which have regaled you already with so many chronicles and tales. I know nothing of those heroes or martyrs or villains that history tells about, or some of the macabre facts of some mages masquerading as fiction. I know nothing of their enticing -paradise and hell- in the swamplands, mountainsides, deserts and flatlands of Thedas.

All I know is that I have spent my years of my magical existence in clever, observant roaming and study, never provoking the slightest danger from my own kind, and never arousing their knowledge or suspicions.

You probably find me flexible, daring, and now and then a shock. But what can I do but draw upon the fullest descriptive power I can command, right? Wrong. It's somewhat the same reason why I have no steady, conscious interest to narrate this unless I'm all happy smiles and rainbows... riding the rainbow once, going down on the gutter for eternity, as the Fereldan saying goes. It would be better if I do it all the time, for you'd get to know me much better and much easier... But hah, no. I'm not spoiling my own fun. Father was a wise man in teaching me this lesson. Don't spoil all the fun when you're dealing with clever, much intelligent people that can figure things out on their own and probably even much better than you do yourself - they'll teach you in turn things about yourself that you haven't yet deciphered in your schizophrenic little mind. Me and me and me agree.

It's a damned compliment to you, right there! Not the schizophrenic part, silly! The clever, more intelligent people part. Well now, look at the irony in there. I had to point it out right when I was in the middle of overexerting my muscles to explain that one should not spoil the fun... ah, whatever. I did the same thing with Varric, with Fenris, with everyone. They figured it me out on their own. You did too, and if not, there is still time. Remember? I don't know how to die.

I have a brain as well as a heart, and there hovers about me an etheric visage of myself, created most definitely by some "Higher Power" and entangled completely within the intangible weave of that etheric visage is what men call a soul (hah, you probably thought I was gonna say some magic crap). Nope, just the one soul. I have such. No amount of blood can drown away its life and leave me but a thriving revenant (it's funny because if I get possessed, being a warrior as well as a mage, I'm not sure if I will be transformed into a Revenant or an Arcane Horror. Someone somewhere that I found extremely annoying once is now echoing in my head with "That remains to be seen." Well, I can't argue with that. Probably the honesty of that statement and my honest confirming of it thereafter is testament to how Fenris has never in truth hated or despised me).

But I accuse myself again of going on and on, and I do, there is no doubt.

This chapter ought to be over.

And so embraced and protected, I write, ready for the moment when the full yet ever obscure moon leaves me for the hideaway of clouds, to light the candles that stand ready... OH BULL. Don't scream at me, I'll quit my bullshitting now.

What I'm gonna do is tell you what happened just after we realized Fenris and I were still holding hands.

It was pretty stupid.

* * *

As soon as we looked at our hands, we shot each other awkward glances. My smile could not have been more crooked. I thought he was going to shove my hand away like a dead weasel and just head off in the distance like it was no big deal. No matter how many thoughts you read from his perspective, there was less than almost nothing that he had leaked on the outside. And why not? It was the talent of a fighter stamped by cruelty and death to appear nonchalant and stalwart, almost perfectly resolute. Understand, in my eyes, he was all there in times of danger, and only half there in times of calm and peace. The only time in which I felt he was all there with me was when Fenris first kissed me in my mansion like a week or two ago, and the night before and this morning when we woke up. No matter his tigerish passion and his warm embraces, Fenris was still very private about his feelings, and the only way I knew whatever the nature of those feelings were, was ultimately by his actions. Forget drunken thoughts and feelings, speeches and hot-headed impulsive kisses. One day or another we had to both be sober and willing to speak our minds and settle this - whatever we were doing - like fully grown adults... Yeah, I didn't believe me either. I equally looked forward and dreaded our arrival in Kirkwall because of this. We were walking on a path of no return, either way.

But to get back to the story, after we shot those private glances at each other, just for a moment, Fenris gave me a short, playful little smile, affection shooting out through the cracks of his indomitable gaze. I watched those wonderful traceries of his bone-hard expression, his green eyes going brighter for a moment all alight with warmth in them, and the paleness of his lips catching a subtle rosy nuance, ripe and lovely, as the corners of his mouth stretched into that little smile just for me.

It felt like everything was going into slow motion, when those warm eyes left me to look forward and that smile simply died - it turned into a hideous image, as his eyes flinched and opened wide, stripped of all livelihood and hope, no warmth in them at all, and I felt his heart stiffen into one big, painful, horrific throb. That throb propelled horrifically throughout all the veins in his body and petrified them in ice down to that soft grip of his hand that was holding mine. Then everything rushed into rapid, even more terrifying motion; time felt like it thrust and cleaved its claw into my being and down to my own hand, when, with the quickness of a burning arrow, Fenris let go.

My own quickness of a well-trained warrior dictated that I should snap out of that image and look forward to see what the hell had struck him like some defenseless little ant; I looked forward and the only things I saw were Varric and Isabela going into the carriage while bitching at each other at the end of the bridge. Then somewhere in my peripheral vision, I spotted some grey and black figures going into the historical building by the bridge, the first building one saw when they entered the midst of Antiva City. It was now an inn called La Luna Affondata, so roughly or pretty much literally, The Sunken Moon. A bit of irony there, remembering the Sunk'n Orlesian Inn back home which was quite the opposite of a fancy, cough-causing perfumed and luxurious place, but this was no time to laugh over subtleties. I didn't know if that was what scared him, but I had no real time to analyze and overthink a faint little image I didn't even catch in its wholeness. Another quickness of instinct, that had nothing to do with the warrior in me, made its way out of my mouth.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

Fenris appeared to have not even heard me; so pale and petrified was he, that I could scarce even trace my thoughts. I locked my eyes on him and my voice was a bit shaky.

"Fenris?"

Understand, Fenris doesn't have a childish face, even if I sometimes I press that he has an almost angelic one. His eyebrows were strong, dark, high enough over his eyes to allow them entirely too much luster. His elfish forehead would be a little too high if it wasn't so straight, and if he didn't have so much thick and white hair, making as it does a rich, unsurpassable frame for the whole picture. And of course, his body was overmuscular for an elf, he was much taller than the fellows of his race (and I wouldn't admit it but he was a bit, really taller than me when I had no boots; in the Antivan catacombs, when  _he_ wore boots, he was a mountain next to me). He was strong, broad-chested, his arms were stamped with well sculptured muscles, giving an impression of manly power. This rather rescued his obdurate-looking jaw and tattooed chin and allowed him to pass for a full-fledged human, at least from a distance. Of course, this well-developed physique he owed to tremendous practice with the heavy battle sword in the last years of his life, which was not something he took open pride with, considering for a good part of his years, it hadn't been at all voluntary.

To see this bull-headed, and just as much calm elf now looking petrified and in a whole other way, cold, was something bewildering. I didn't know what to make of his expression. You could have seen the very same face on a man startled by an insect or an approaching battalion of bloody murderers. My head was full.

When he didn't answer, I asked his name again.

At last, Fenris caught motion again. Well, his eyes did. They flinched and his head turned to look at me with some kind of hate or fire or ... something. It was a very sharp look. I looked in haunted perplexity and appalling sorrow.

Thinking back now, it hadn't occurred to me to think that this was the lingering expression that painted him when he saw whatever he had seen. I didn't think to guess that this look was not really meant for me at all.

At that moment however, I was frightened and Fenris caught the look on my face. As he did, his eyebrows furrowed into some low, ashamed look and he quickly coughed. His face went dark and he turned his head forward again with a lowered gaze. No more traceable were his green eyes, for the richness of his white hair had covered it all. All I saw was the corner of his lips tighten sharply and then, with the fullness of a deep, decisive tone, he said, "The sun is setting. Let us be off."

For some reason, from the way he was walking much more humpback and stiff than usual, I thought that he might not want to take over and drive with me as we first agreed to. Without thinking it, some voice in me said he would do well to stay in the carriage, where no eyes could spot him.

I swallowed inside and almost shouted, "Fenris, I- do you mind if you get inside and let Isabela take your place for now? I have a bone to pick with her."

He frowned at me, as if I'd insulted him.

I tried to smile a bit as I said calmly, "You said you were exhausted, remember?" To that he looked bewildered, as if he had totally forgotten just how exhausted and dead he was from the last few restless days. I kept my stout-hearted, yet rather softer voice and said, "Sleep it off, what do you say?"

He narrowed his eyes and inhaled shortly, then with a small lift to his eyebrows in a fairly attempted fit of nonchalance, he climbed into the carriage and muttered, "As you wish."

My mind resolved that sitting with Varric at the back would also be easier, since he was the last one to annoy or prod him in any way. For a long time, unbeknownst to the others and even to me, Fenris and Varric became more than just some drinking pals that also happened to be working together. They became good friends. But they were men and they didn't talk about it, of that much I was sure. However stupid that seemed even for me, men needed other men to be friends with. Even if I was no ordinary woman, some things in nature simply can't be changed and they dictate that friendships between opposite genders and friendships between the same gender, are always going to be a bit different. At any rate though, Varric had the master's tact of calming and soothing any kind of person, which of course made it much easier to be in his company when you also considered him a friend and you were used to his easygoing, "Teh, please" attitude. That and of course, he had the Diamond Back cards.

Meanwhile, I resolved to teach Isabela exactly how to maneuver the horses, because there would surely come a time when I would be too exhausted to do it and I was not going to let Fenris take over just to become overly annoyed at her teasing jokes and, in his words, "inane prodding". Of course, at the time, I didn't even think about all of this. I just did what my muscle dictated. Or intuition or perception or whatever bullshit women have when they just know stuff.

A few minutes in, I was rambling about the technique as if were the mighty God of Carriages. "So you keep a strong hold like this over your knuckles and whenever the horsies feel like sliding away the main road you just –"

"I know what you're doing," Isabela cut me with all the cat-like, quiet and perceptive voice that screamed accusation.

"Well then, by all means take over," I said with a smile.

"I'm not talking about the horsies and you know it," Isabela cut me again with a wink.

With a contained lift to my eyebrows, I cleared my throat and resumed to watch the road. "You really wanna interrogate me now and cause drama, when I can throw you off the edge into the evergreen forests with only a lift to this harness, Ship-Captain of the Raindrops?"

Isabela chuckled softly and raised a playful eyebrow as she said, "Well now, Knight-Captain Bullshit On the Long Road, I can't wait to scream out of my lungs what  _you know_  I will scream if you do attempt to throw me. Now  _that_ 's gonna be dramatic, don't you think?"

"Ee- _ghad,_ whatever," I muttered grumpily and shook my head. I kept my eyes on the road, but of course she pressed.

"I know you-"

" _Keep_  your voice down, Madam Butterfly," I cut her sharply.

She cleared her throat as she rolled her eyes and whispered tactfully, "You're not far from the truth by calling me that, y'know. I was fairly close to offing myself when I saw," she raised a saucy eyebrow, "what I saw."

"Such a shame that you didn't go all the way through with it," I said quietly. When she didn't say anything, my thoughts went scattered and I gulped. Keeping my eyes on the road, I whispered, "Now what would that be, exactly, that which you saw?"

"Let's just say I saw enough to win the small bet I made with Fairy Godmother back there, but not enough to win the grand prize," Isabela whispered cockily.

"Oh, how awful," I mocked, rolling my eyes.

"The only question is," Isabela started and shot me a flirtatious grin, " _am I_ going to win the grand prize? Did I already win it?"

I turned my head back on the road. Birds were flying up in the sky. Chipmunks were cutting my path. Stubborn little…

"Well?" she pressed.

"Oh, look a- "

"Quit your bullshit, the chipmunks are okay," Isabela said sharply.

I growled in annoyance and looked at her only with the back of my eye, "Don't hold your breath."

"Well… I'm going broke," Isabela whispered. "So either you do  _everyone_ a favor and get it over with, or I'll have to take matters into my own hands."

"Threats?" I asked in surprise. "Really, Cobrateeth, is that how you wanna play me?"

"I always get things done," Isabela said. "I'm effective like that. Never mind the means."

"Oh great, now I'm supposed to believe you'd go as far as holding us under the guillotine and cutting the rope ever so slightly every time we refuse with a loud  _Mwa-ha-ha, fuck or die, my puppets,_ " I said grumpily.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far, but," Isabela whispered, then her eyes sparkled with mischief, "What's a better way to die than during sex, really?"

"That's what you tell to comfort yourself after every bad fuck on your part, isn't it?" I asked with a grin.

"Not on my part," Isabela chuckled. "I can't wait to see who dies first."

"From me or you, when I decide you're at the end of my nerves and happy rainbows of understanding?" I whispered sharply.

"From you or him, either from the impossible tension or _during_  the very act," Isabela mused. "Considering how much he scares me shitless, I'm thinking it's best if you back off now."

"Don't be ridiculous," I said with a smirk. "I never die in defeat."

"That's usually the arrogant thing people say before they die in the dumbest way possible, like killed on the toilet when you take your morning dump," Isabela laughed softly.

"That's how your husband was assassinated, isn't it?" I asked perceptively, grinning at her to no end.

Isabela widened her eyes for a second, then lowered her gaze and smirked, "He told you."

"Oh?" I almost shouted and smiled, "In all seriousness, he didn't," I laughed. "But good to know. I'm usually terrible at guessing."

"Dear Captain Fortunepants…You  _never_ guess," Isabela said and rolled her eyes at me with an accusatory air. She pointed at her. "I never guess either." She gestured with her hand, "We think, we ponder, we spot the unspottable, then we connect the dots; so quickly it seems like it's just a lucky guess." She pointed at me now. "What you're terrible at is seeing what's right in front of you. Kind of like a deliberate and reserved blind spot for dummies."

"Oh, Captain… I could say the same thing about you," I said bitterly, and resumed watching the road in silence.

A few hours passed and I was dead-beat. I didn't say anything, but Varric hit me on the shoulder a few too many times for me to ignore him and continue swimming – drowning more likely – in the sea of my knightly overresistance. He told me to quit my crap and go in the back. I said, "Yes, Sir" and quit my crap.

In the back, Fenris was in deep sleep. I fell into the back seat next to him without much care, too exhausted to remove boots or chainmail or daggers or anything else (I changed from that dress of course). I thought I'd fall into a deep sleep, but I lay rigid, full of hatred, and hurt, and swollen broken soul, staring into the dark, my mouth full of death as if I'd eaten it. Only after did I realize, it was not I who was feeling this.

* * *

**The Fade**

I was thrown off into some dark room, far away from the one little candle shimmering in the distance.

Well, I saw now there was a cavernous room, carved high and deep out of the earth, and faced with stone, and that it was full of varied dusty things. There were old chests and even old books in heaps. And two bolted doorways. My heart didn't swallow itself in fear until I saw the chains.

Fenris was in those chains, shackled like a dog against the dark stone wall. His face was covered by the fullness of his white hair, because his head was hanging low and he was coughing, breathing horribly. Then he was silent again, as if nothing was of importance, and this was all just routine screeching his bones and his flesh.

There was a man in front of him, sitting on chair near that one little candle on a table, and he was also silent. He looked at Fenris as if he waited for something, because even if Fenris's hair and arms were bloody, it didn't seem like he was dying or close to fainting from pain. The man simply looked at him, as if to savor the grand of effigy of Fenris's helplessness.

His hair was thick and black, hanging sleekly onto his shoulders, but I couldn't see his face, no, not at all, for the hat he wore overshadowed it, and I caught but a glimpse of very white skin, the line of his jaw and a bit of his neck, for nothing else was visible. Beside the crossbow on the table, he had a broadsword of immense size leaning over it, with an antique scabbard, and casually over one shoulder was a cloak of some wine-dark, almost maroon velvet trimmed in what seemed to my distant eyes to be ornate heraldry symbols on his cloak.

I strained, trying to make them out, this border of signs, and I thought I could see a dragon and serpent worked into his fancy adornments over his armor, but I was really too far away.

"Is this how you want to spend the rest of your precious little seconds before you die?" the man asked him with an edge to his voice. "Shooting me dirty looks when I already know you despise me?"

Fenris remained silent for a few seconds, then he finally raised his gaze to the man. His eyes were empty, his expression was flat, unshakable and his voice was cold.

He breathed a bit hoarsely, then he said, "What do you prefer?"

The man raised from his chair and it almost fell back off, so forcefully and quick did he go up.

"A little remorse for killing an innocent man," he demanded.

I couldn't see clearly, but I could swear I spotted a dark smirk through Fenris's hair.

"Innocent?" he asked. With all the fullness of disgust, Fenris then growled, "Don't make me laugh."

"He was my brother," the man almost shouted, his hands clenching horribly into fists.

Fenris didn't flinch one bit, so unconquerable and tranquil he seemed to be. No worry for death or pain in his forest-green eyes. He locked his gaze onto the man with sharp, utter contempt. "And so I should feel sorry about obvious realities that all the people that come to kill me have siblings, and parents, and even children?" he asked.

He spat strongly.

Then he shook his head and disgust fell through his nostrils, his lips were crooked. "It was your choice to go after a slave," he almost hissed. "How are you better than me, I wonder?"

"You," the man shouted in a hoarse voice, as he approached Fenris and pointed at him in sheer hatred as he continued yelling, "have  _no one_."

"Oh?" Fenris asked in a perfectly calm tone, his green eyes empty. "I'm heartbroken."

"You soon will be," the man hissed and turned around.

Again, I could almost swear I saw a ghost of a disgustful smirk drawing up on Fenris.

"I am going to disappoint you," he said flatly.

The Tevinter hunter, now I realized, turned around and again shouted, which made him look like a complete fool consuming himself twice more than one should, in contrast to Fenris, whose green eyes and deep tone painted the effigy of an utterly fearless, calm and unwavering prisoner.

The man, as I was saying, shouted, "Are you going to spew some thwarted romantic line that the poor little wolf has no heart to be broken in the first place?"

"No," Fenris cut him flatly. His eyes were unfaltering as he stood there crucified in the chains against the wall. He kept his gaze locked onto the soldier. "I have a heart. This I have."

Then his eyes lowered, and he pressed them shut for a second. A second too much that I saw utter pain in them. That distinct, hidden sting in one's soul, so sharp and small that it helplessly dictated the whole of one's being.

When they opened, his voice was again, deep and flat, without much further ado, "What I also have is a brain, so it is fairly certain that I will die of boredom from your foolish prattle before you ever get to _break it_."

The hunter lost his temper. It was final. He went for his crossbow, but then for a second, he stopped and glanced at the Tevinter broadsword. He broke into anger with his gripping of the sword, and as he caught it in his hands and approached his captive, he put the sword horizontally against his neck. The neck of an undaunted, resolute captive. Indeed, Fenris didn't even flinch.

"Do you remember the words for Maker's Prayer, slave?" the man growled and bumped the sword only slightly against Fenris's neck.

"I must have been asleep from the incense when they thought us that one," Fenris said coldly, unfaltering.

"Say it," the soldier hissed. Only know did I realize they were speaking in Tevene, and somehow I understood it all. "Come now, I will give you a head start. Our Maker, which art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name..."

Fenris looked at him as if he was an idiot. His expression was pale and empty in his silence. The creaking noise of the wind going through the window is the answer he gave him.

"PRAY FOR YOUR DELIVERENCE, SLAVE," the hunter shouted in anger. "Do it now before I cut your throat."

I thought for a second, Fenris would simply roll his eyes and hiss at him to go on with it already before he falls asleep from boredom, but in turn, I saw a rapid flash of fear in him as he swallowed inside. He lowered his eyes and articulated hoarsely, "Thy kingdom come."

"Yes," the man said and nodded. "Continue."

The last thing I saw was a scornful, ferocious face painting onto Fenris. I saw his teeth gritting.

Then for some cruelly inexplicable reason (I couldn't hear myself shouting and I couldn't move, I was like a point in the air) I felt some sort of dark little vortex absorbing me into Fenris's mind. I simply twirled around in a thread of darkness shooting right inside Fenris and then the image changed.

* * *

Rapidly, I saw that he was in the same predicament. Fenris was crucified with chains against the wall. His head was lowered and his eyes were closed. I knew at once he hung there fainted.

Then a splash of cold water slapped him awake. He barely opened his eyes, and in a second, he fell on the ground when the chains were undone. The image was so cold and quiet, and he was, just the same, that the point in the air that I was felt like breaking into tears. This was the image of pure mockery and submission.

"Get up," a feminine voice said. The face, I didn't see, but the tone, the sound, that voice – it bore the fullness of poison.

Down on the ground and silent, Fenris tried to get up. Beyond the pool of freezing water he lied almost soulless in, there lingered crusted blood stains, traces of vomit and rotten peas.

He tried, but he scarcely could.

He was bruised and pale beyond that old vest of his, and from what I saw on his bare fingers, they had the horrific traceries of thumbscrews. The muscles on his arm were shaking horrifically as he pressured himself against his hands to get up. I felt his lack of strength, the stiffened muscles in his throat, and his heart barely beating in his chest.

" _Today,_ Wolf Boy," the voice commanded again sharply.

He tried again, he truly did. He put his knees against the ground and I saw in him the old statues of slaves in the Gallows.

"By the Void, you're truly worthless," the woman's voice hissed. "Is  _that_ how do such a remarkable job in guarding your Master, White Pup Of The Feeble And The Infirm? By looking worthless and hoping his enemies will break inside at the sight of utter weakness?"

The mockery was unbearable.

His once kind-hearted, strong eyes with all that ripe green in them, they were empty now. Worse than empty. They had the void in them, the sheer ghost of hopelessness and degradation.

I felt his thoughts as he slowly and sickly raised his eyes to look at the figure.

_Curse you,_ his thoughts said.  _Curse you in Hell._

"Good-for-nothing waste of my time," the voice shouted in exasperation. I saw the back of the figure dressed in a silk robe of pale-violet. She kicked him in the stomach with no shame.

He didn't flinch or growl. He made no sound. He got up on his own.

But from the hollow mouth of darkness beyond the opening there came only a low satin laughter, a mocking laughter, and this it seemed was echoed by others, and I heard a powerful thundering of steps, as though several scorching shadows had commenced at once to harrow Hell upon him.

Thus the image changed, and I saw him thrown on the ground ruthlessly in front of a black velvet pair of shoes and a midnight-violet and green fancy robe. One of those shoes came to Fenris's forehead, moving his head mockingly to show his face. It was empty and beaten.

"It was not enough, was it?" a man's make-believe patient voice said. Then came the hateful fakeness of a heavy sigh.

"I'd have let him rot for a few more days," the woman's voice said with a disgustful tone. Her voice was so sharp and thin it deafened and scratched, and in all honesty it would have aroused a duty into anyone to cut her tongue out and throw it to the wolves, however ironically.

" _I decide_ what becomes of him," came the man's deep voice, cutting the woman short.

"Of course, Master," the woman said suavely. Ah, so by the robe and the way she addressed to the figure, she was an apprentice.

"Undo his vest," the man demanded of her. She did as he commanded. I only saw her hands undoing all the straps at the back of his dark vest, opening it ruthlessly, shoving it off.

"Leave us," the Master's voice commanded abruptly.

"As you wish," the woman's voice said, a bit of pride in it. As if it felt rewarding to be so smooth and respectful to her superior, one who obviously did not have any complaints on how she had handled the slave.

I could scarcely hold this image in my head, if I were not a point in the air. He didn't even need some magical bindings to hold him down. Fenris was in all the power of the word, subdued.

And at the mercy of his master.

I only saw the shoes and that one portion of his ugly robe. They walked around patiently behind him. Fenris was on his knees. His face was cold and indomitable, almost fooling you with the appearance of carelessness for whatever was meant to happen to him. A few seconds afterwards only did I see the corner of his lips curl when the man spoke.

"How did that one fascinating prayer of those worthless infidels who worship the 'Maker' go?" the man asked in a serene voice.

Fenris remained silent. I heard his imbalanced breathing as his eyes kept locked onto the ground, like those old statues.

"Give us this day our daily bread… And forgive us our trespasses," the man said. He chuckled for a moment. "What a remarkable line that is. Truly clear in its intent, and all the more foolish in its nature." He paused, and the pause seemed to last forever. "How can anyone justify such stupidity? Such an insult?"

Fenris didn't answer. The shoes kept walking around behind him.

I felt the heat rise in my face. I wanted to look from right to left, up to see that sick son of a bitch and remember his face when I would catch and kill him someday, but not before I'd repeatedly smack his face on the ground in his own blood, vomit and tears. Until he would beg.

All I saw, in turn, all I could behold, was Fenris. And his white cheeks and his dark mouth, which were all too often the color of fresh wounds. I stared at the blanched and colorless expression with which he regarded his predicament and the very ground. Were his eyes full of vengeful, hateful fire, or was it only that every other bit of humanity had been taken from his countenances?

"As we forgive those who trespass against us," the man continued. "How insane. Who even came up with that, I wonder?"

Silence again. The man inhaled and the shoes kept pacing. It the haunting quiet, it felt like every step echoed when it was made, and every one of those deep sounds hit Fenris in the head, shaking him, stinging, beating him. It didn't look like it, but I felt it in his soul. The steps, going and going, it was utter cacophony of pain.

His eyes curled only for a second, and they wished it would be over soon.

"I am inclined to believe that your body is urgently issuing for that… well, once-a-week bread," the man said. He was right. Only now did I notice, the distinct shadows along Fenris's bare torso, which shaped the terrible outlines of his ribs. He was still muscular, but the kind which was once ripe and then degraded by anemia. "But seeing as how you don't want to learn, I cannot afford to give you what you need, can I?"

Silence again. Fenris almost shuddered when he heard his name. "You can speak now, Fenris."

"No, Master, you cannot afford to," Fenris said flatly, empty eyes on the ground.

"And what about the forgiving of our trespasses as we forgive the ones who trespass against us?" the man asked calmly, every step throbbing on the ground.

"You have forgiven me for my humiliating you in front of the Archon at the procession the other day as I forgive you for humiliating me now, Master," Fenris articulated every word rather melodically, as if he was instructed that he should talk clearly every time he was allowed to.

"Very good," the man approved calmly. "You are just as bright as I wagered you would be."

Fenris didn't say anything. The man spoke again, "You can say it, Fenris."

Since he was with his back turned, Fenris pressed his eyes tightly as he said it, "Thank you, Master."

"Then let us proceed," the man said in a very taunting voice.

What I saw next was the worst.

The rapid clack of a spiked whip. But that was not the worst.

The worst was that Fenris's eyes went tightly shut, but never flinched, and never shuddered.

The sound of the next lash sent it right into me. I felt it as if I were him, with all the literary meaning. Only after did I realize, that the man bound him with a blood spell that kept him in place, and that as it also happened, kept his skin alive and sensitive, to repel any sort of numbing effect from his wide reserves of warrior adrenaline. People like us didn't really feel the pain when we were alarmed, but the spell kept it all there, alive and lashing, and lashing…

And then the words of his exquisite tormentor came back, "What happened, Fenris? Did you forget how to count?"

Fenris inhaled very quickly, as if he had cursed himself in his thoughts. Then again I did hear those curses perhaps.

"No, Master," he said. "Forgive me. I shall begin counting as of now."

"Good, Fenris," the man said very suavely. Another clack of the whip came thrashing.

"Three," Fenris uttered with all the strength he still had in his voice.

"Three?" the man asked in outrage. "Do you often start counting with three?"

_Curse you,_ I heard him think.  _Curse you son of a pig._

"Forgive me, Master," Fenris said. "I shall start again."

The lash came again, this time I felt it again too, but from beginning to end. Fenris didn't flinch, didn't shudder.

"One," he said flatly.

And then another. It propelled out of time as if it were the utter sounds of catastrophe, of every soul that had ever suffered, all here into one being.

"Two," Fenris said again, not even wavering for a harrowing that was every second.

Rather than saying Fenris had no power or willingness of his own, it felt and was so, that all his power and willingness he had reserved with all his dedication, to endure this.

And keep it together.

"Three," Fenris counted calmly, only a bit did his voice seem to stutter in its hoarseness.

I felt all of it, and I could scarce numb it out by some clever channeling technique to trick the Fade that was tricking me. I felt it all and I was going mad. Not because of my pain, but because of his, which he kept all inside, with no whisper, no shudder, no little sound. All Fenris did was swallow it inside and move now and again from the inertia of the whiplashes.

Propelled out of time, on and on it went, and I didn't even realize it had gotten up to the double-digits.

"Forty-four," came Fenris's voice as unperturbed and deeply flat as always.

I could hear the man exasperating. It had not occurred to me, that his master was growing terribly tired of the continuous whiplashing and of Fenris's unyielding, resolute attitude. He considered it rebellious. He considered it an insult, just as much as I felt he enjoyed the hell that was burning worse than Fenris's back, in his soul, as he tried to keep an inflexible expression.

It was just as much a game for his master as it was for him. Taunting the man with passivity. Showing him he would not get surpassed. Indeed there was some willingness left to him, and it inflamed Danarius just as much as it drew him to the elf. It irritated and made him see red.

What the man wanted was to hear the sound of his pain and the sound of his helplessness. What he fiercely desired was to hear Fenris beg him to stop. For that was the only thing that would stamp his humiliation. But what I knew, was that Fenris would not let even one poor groan escape his lips. What I didn't know was why.

When I heard Danarius sigh in annoyance, as contained as he could, I saw and now I was sure, that Fenris smirked powerfully through his hair.

Pride was what possessed them both. Hatred was what kept Fenris perfectly still, while malice was what animated those shoes. A small joy at his exasperation, to the contained sighs of the voice that tormented him with the lash that I felt now, bore the memory of his pain. Hundreds, thousands of whiplashes, and no other future one was less excruciating and gut-wrenching than the last one.

_Forty-four minutes of target practice, all hell's breaking loose._

The man's voice came growling.

The shoes came thrashing.

He caught Fenris by the shoulder and brought him up and turned him around. I saw his back – the Lament of Andraste was nothing compared to the horror painted across the canvas of that back. The wounds, straight and vertical, perfectly precise, carefully ignoring every thread of his markings.

"You mean to mock me again, Fenris?" the man shouted at him.

I felt the hatred now more than ever in his soul. His thoughts said he wanted to kill him. His thoughts said he will one day kill him, if it was the last thing he ever did.

Fenris didn't answer, but he breathed. His answer was perfect. His talent to play with technicalities was most refined, indeed, because that was the most marvelous spit into his Master's face as  _he_ was the first to lose it – Fenris couldn't answer unless he was given permission to. And beholding now his master's crumbling temper, since he had forgotten now of that little detail he himself appointed with all the might of his authority… it was more powerful than any little triumphant smirk.

I will kill you one day. This, I swear.

Then came the vortex again, twirling me inside and into Fenris again, and the image propelled and shook yet again. It's as if the all the emotion, all the rancor, all the hate and all the drive that dictated Fenris's constant soul, had gathered again into an immensely powerful blast of a deathblow.

I came out of his eyes, and I saw them evergreen, alight with fire. We were back into the moment the hunter held his own sword against Fenris's throat, mocking and demanding of him to tell the prayer.

That evergreen light in his eyes, made his being invulnerable. It was testament to having a heart that would never yield. They had seen too much to be shaken, and his skin felt too much to shudder.

The wind blew inside again, shoving the window open. Instinctively, the hunter turned around to behold the surprising force. In slow motion it seemed to happen, that Fenris got his arm out of the shackles that he previously worked on to slowly outmaneuver. In a flash of a second, he pushed the horizontal sword onto the hunter's throat as he growled all the more ferociously now, "Thy will be done."

* * *

**Back Into The World**

When I opened my eyes, it was because I gasped as my lungs failed in my sleep. I gasped and shuddered and instinctively looked to my right. The first harrowing second of my waking up bore the memory, alive in my soul, just as much as I knew that he woke up at the same time with the same terrible reaction.

As he looked at me, all with the same flat, invulnerable expression, I was about to break into tears.

But I kept myself together. I would never break. He needed a rock as hard or even harder than himself to cling onto before he would crumble, even if I knew he would get up again, with the same cold, unbending face. But that face I wouldn't begin to bear when I knew and I had seen, just how rich and ripe and free, and full with warmth the subtle traceries of his expression could animate it to.

He was not aware that I saw what I saw. I knew that much.

I swore right then and there, that I would never let him go back to a constant cold expression he worked however tiredly to keep for his own protection –from the hunters, from the world, from himself. He would never have to defend himself from me.

More so, I would be there, I would  _ensure_ that Fenris got his turn to grab that disgusting son of a pig by the collar of his pretentious ugly robes and watch with my own cold, in fact genuinely cold expression, as Fenris would growl "Count this, you could never get it wrong. You only get as far as One" and then he would break his neck, drop him dead on the ground and viciously spit on him with all the fullness of nonchalance. Burn in hell and have a swell eternity, 'Master'.

Back to the harrowing reality inside the ever-hopping silent carriage, Fenris closed his eyes halfway and rested his head sideways against the wall, and all the more quiet was his breathing in and out than the deafness of the ride.

There were no words, because for one, I couldn't afford to tell him what I saw, and for two, all my strength and will were reserved to my refusal to break right then and there.

A gesture was enough.

I was driven mechanically, to be honest.

I rested my head back again and kept silent as I put my hand over his, none too insistent or abrupt in the touch.

I was enveloped by darkness again, my head, my soul, my heart all too crushed and tired to bear reality more than a few seconds more.

The last thing I saw were his fingers that were resting coldly on the seat, slowly curl and tangle themselves into mine.

 


	41. The Clown, The Knight And The Insanity

I was born after the war, therefore I delve in all, and blend without prejudice. Fereldans are not very open people though, do not doubt that. As a perfectly hidden apostate, I learned to be human more than anything else. I learned, dime a dozen, what it means to be cruel and what it means to be stamped by evil and prejudice nonetheless, and these deeds and horrors that I learned pertained little to anything magic. I've seen humans, elves and dwarves mistreated with the same equal amount of malice. In all my years, I haven't once learned to swallow it though. No, I always stuck my nose where "it doesn't belong" if I had the power to, because I am not one lower my gaze, cough shortly and walk past the theatrical scene of life in all its ugliness pretending it's not my business. That's rather the Kirkwall fashion though, I swear it's almost poetic. I try to lessen these things. That some higher good pertains to what I do now, as a noble-in-disguise Kirkwall citizen and Free Marcher? That I am fairly open to doubt.

As for my native Ferelden, hear it softly when you say my name, Hawke, and breathe it like perfume, because that's as soft as it can get. We are not Anderfelian, cold, harsh and unsurpassable by the slightest of human emotion, but we do remain invulnerable to most conquest over our weaknesses. I suppose it's because we have a rather distinct collective feeling of belonging, of pride related to all the sweat and blood of our ancestors, and in so anything short of scorn against this pride is unacceptable. We strive for our independence like the wild birds protect their eggs and their nest from any incoming vulture. It's utter dedication to stand our ground and protect our kin.

What kin? Well, it's not like I'd met the king or anything, but I'd met the poorer children of Ferelden, the sons of the merchants, orphans and boys from the monasteries and schools, the elves in the villages, some servants, some standalone families living on the edge, at the risk of getting attacked by some drunken lords. I met some of those lords too and I could scarcely bring myself to hold it together and not spit in their face or satirize them at least. It's a good thing I had Father with me at those times. I'd met a lot of different kinds of people, and I had no prejudice, because that is the way it was with our rules of living and conduct if a family of apostates commenced to survive in the free world. You had to mix with the people.

And that my trade tongue, well, Ferelden tongue still but in a genuine accent, my friends find it fascinating… well, I find it a bit amusing. Fascinating in that my mutterings are so colorful, accented as they are, with a stinging sound most curious to it. Amusing to me because I find everything amusing when it's about me. I'm a proud clown I am. But a thriving romantic, a princess, a most beautiful aristocratic maiden or even a queen of the underworld, I'm not. A vagabond good-doer mage disguised as such, maybe I will be, who knows.

But to yield to some soft lustrous pronunciation, that right there is a big no-no. I do not have the soft tune of an Antivan, with blandishments most pretty as I utter them. Antivans really have a distinct fire in their accent, with love for everything and everyone, and it feels as though anything directed at them and anything they direct at the world in turn is a constant source of bliss for them.

Me? Not so much. Fereldens in comparison, do seem like they speak the very language of unemotion. I find that curiously rhapsodic though, in that it is in fact, way better, to my preference at least, to open your ears with more effort in finding the emotion, the melody, the subtle sounds of lively creation in a rather passive tune to one's quiescent, languid or rampant course, words are powerful in every respect, but the art of listening to them, deciphering and swallowing the wholeness of what they create, is a higher art than simply reading and hearing and then going like "Ah, mhm, mhm. Fascinating." Music is just the same, painting is just the same. There's a whole nucleus of immense charge ready to blast upon the world and jolt your insides and make your heart choke in its convulsion of defeat – once the right ear or eye commence to absorb and understand it, of course.

And again, I accuse myself that I mutter too much nonsense.

Forgive me, I have gone a bit soft. Ferelden's Independence Day is soon and I am currently in a gondola in Antiva City pondering on so much that I have lost with the Blight because feelings.

Oh right, I haven't made this clear. I fell asleep again and I was in the Fade  _again_. This is going to be  **short** , but of course I had to ramble first to make you want to scratch your eyes out, because I'm very much a sadist when it comes to these things. And since I said it like that, you can rest assured this short episode is not going to be graphically cruel and heartbreaking in any way. I will also cease with this overly personal way of telling the story and commence to now abuse of my full descriptive power, as in of course third person, because I know that some prefer first and some prefer the other, and I feel very democratic about my annoying everyone. So let us make haste with ending this tale!

* * *

**Fiume di Speranza (River of Hope), The Fade**

He stood thinking of his painful memories. His despair of the three nights had perhaps penetrated too deep.

He couldn't catch them. So be it. They scurried into the nothingness rather like the leaves in the alleyways, the leaves that sometimes tumble down and down the stained green walls from the little gardens whipped in the wind up there on the rooftops.

_I don't want to,_ Fenris's inner voice echoed.

Across the canal, men sang as they drove their long narrow gondolas, voices seeming to ring, to splash up the walls, delicate, sparkling, then dying away.

_Someday it will all come clear to you, when you have the strength to use it_ , came a voice.

They were roaming about the rivers of the city in a long, narrow, black gondola, drinking from only one glass of wine. A mad disorder, an abundance for the sake of itself, a great drench of colors and shapes it seemed to be. The Fade was breathing tormented, striving to balance itself, all with the havoc propelling out and stubbornly trying to conquer the world. Fenris was shaking it. But the waters were still, the wind blew nonchalantly through Hawke's bloody red hair, long threads of it dancing in the air as she drank the wine, and equally content did it seem to touch and unsettle the shorter ivory richness that made his own hair. And the stars, they lay quiet still, pulsating with their light in the grandest of tranquility across the midnight sky. It was like the wine, too sweet and light.

It was full night. The breeze was sweet. A few lanterns had been lighted under the long streets.

Hawke took another sip while resting her hand against her head, with her elbow on the edge of the boat and a leg on top of the other. She pressed her lips and licked the wine away, then extended the hand with the glass towards him. Fenris was standing on the other seat in front of her, however ironically, occupying less space than her in his stiffened, resigned posture. She was conquering her side with no shame, whereas he rested his elbows on his knees, staring in blank. She didn't grimace at his deliberate ignorance, rather she just returned the glass to her lips and drank away.

The black gondola was coursing through the greenish waters, all with its two inhabitants that seemed to be invulnerable to the all the sounds and images of the sumptuous scarlet or gold cloaks hurrying along the quays. No, down in their boat of stillness, and moving them as they stood, they traveled in graceful darting silence among the facades and the light of the lanters; each huge house as magnificent as the cathedral in the distance, with its narrow pointed arches, its lotus windows, its covering of gleaming white stone in such radiant contrast with the weight of the black Antivan night.

Even the older, sorrier dwellings, not too ornate but nevertheless monstrous in size, were plastered in colors, a rose so deep it seemed to come from crushed petals, a green so thick it seemed to have been mixed from the opaque water itself.

"Don't be afraid," Hawke said finally and almost startled him – ironically – as her voice echoed greatly across the canal. "You look as though you are terrified."

"I am not afraid," Fenris said sharply, raising his eyes at her. Then his head fell. "It's only that I have to lie in my bed and think and remember and dream."

She looked at him, as he shyly looked away again.

"You are dreaming now," Hawke said and chuckled, with her nonchalant arm on the edge of the boat. "And you look a bit unsteady."

"And now I fear nightmares," Fenris growled bitterly, appearing to have ignored her and continue with his miserable speech. He looked around the river in silence and then his eyes fell upon her with a sudden switch to firmness. "You must tell me—what is our destination? What is our fate?"

To comfort him, to distract him maybe, or simply to return his ignoring her, she suddenly took up a brush and quickly astonished him with a picture that ran like a stream out of its quick application.

A man's face, cheeks, lips, eyes, yes, and fastidious white hair in profusion. Good Maker, it was him, he thought… it was not a canvas but a mirror. It was this… that Fenris, the way she pronounced it. She sighed and took over again, to refine the expression, to deepen the eyes and work a sorcery on the tongue so he seemed about to speak. What was this rampant magic that made an elven man appear out of nothing, most natural, at a casual angle, with eyes more alight and evergreen than the waters beneath, with the knitted dark eyebrows and streaks of unkempt straight and white hair over his sharp ear? It seemed both blasphemous and beautiful, this fluid, abandoned fleshly figure. Something about it was hidden, like a secret ingredient, and all stranger to him until he saw it right in front of him.

Hawke spelled the letters out in red as she wrote them:  _Fenrir._  Then she threw the brush down. She cried, "That is not the name that describes this man."

He lowered his gaze for a moment, then looked up at her. "You are correct, that is not I. I am Fenris," he said flatly with an air of stubborness, articulating every word.

"Fenrir is the great wolf that was bound by the gods and shackled so he would not bring destruction with his rapid growth," she said calmly. "That is where your master got the name and changed a letter to make it sound like a  _little_  subtle tribute to mockery. It is not elven."

He raised an eyebrow, a little interest shimmered in his green eyes. "Ferelden?"

"Ancient, ancient names… from times before it was ever called such," Hawke said calmly. "The name which my Father bestowed upon me also belonged to those times of old."

He looked down, as though he'd remembered something. With a faint air of shyness, he raised his head up and asked, "What does Hildegaard do to Fenrir?"

Hawke remained empty-eyed and reached with the glass towards him. He finally accepted and took a sip, not a second leaving his eyes off of her. She looked up at the sky, "Nothing."

Disappointment had struck his face. "What did they do then?" he asked.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Our names are not some testaments of fate." She inhaled deeply. "But…," she sighed, "if you really want to know-"

"I do," Fenris articulated deeply.

She took her leg off the edge of the boat and rested her elbows on her knees. She looked at him sturdily and said, "Fenrir was the most powerful being in the universe, and therefore the gods bound him. But no shackles were strong enough to tie him down. The gods wanted to know exactly how powerful he was, so they made three fetters. The first two were very strong, but the wolf tore them apart without effort."

"And the third one?" he asked, rising up from his humpback posture.

She curled her lips and gestured, "They last made a silken fetter, and the wolf said, 'It looks to me that with this ribbon as though I will gain no fame from it if I do tear apart, such a slender band, if it is made with art and trickery, then even if it does look thin, this band is not going on my legs.'"

Silken and soft, and all the more untraceable and unevident to the stubborn fool who bound himself in misery perhaps.

"Did it bind him?" Fenris asked quickly.

She smiled and beckoned for him not to be so hasty. The she resumed, "The gods wagered that he would quickly tear apart a silken strip, noting that Fenrir had already broke great iron binds," she gestured calmly, "and added that if Fenrir wasn't able to break that band then Fenrir is nothing for the gods to fear and as a result, he would be freed."

Fenris nodded calmly for her to continue.

She inhaled again and resumed with a risen arm, "To that Fenrir said 'If you bind me so that I am unable to release myself, then you will be standing by in such a way that I should have to wait a long time before I got any help from you. I am reluctant to have this band put on me. But rather than that you question my courage, let someone put his hand in my mouth as a pledge that this is done in good faith.'" She rolled her eyes and grinned, "Of course no god had the balls to do it."

Fenris broke into laughter at her quick switch from courteous to gutter language. The subtle traceries of her accent made it so that none appeared more melodic than the other. They all bore the sound of sweetness and strength, and utter couldn't-care-less sturdiness. She resumed, "The god of war finally stepped in and put his hand between the wolf's jaws. When Fenrir kicked, the band caught tightly, and the more Fenrir struggled, the stronger the band grew. At this, everyone laughed," she said, then pressed her lips and rested her arm over the edge of the gondola. "Except the god of war himself, who there lost his right hand."

"And he was fully bound?" Fenris asked.

She nodded. "They bound him tighter with a fetter and a stone slab and Fenrir reacted violently. He tried to bite the gods. They thrust a certain sword into his mouth, the hilt of the sword on Fenrir's lower gums and the point in his upper gums." She gestured again. "Fenrir howled horribly and saliva ran from his mouth, and this saliva formed the river Van." She smiled suddenly. "It is the ancient word for 'hope'."

"Did he ever get out?" he asked, ignoring to question why a beast, even a beast that seemed to be much wiser than the gods, would bear a river of hope.

Hawke looked up at the night sky, and so did he. "He was to lie there until the end of days. His two sons were to one day swallow the sun, and after the moon," she said serenely and gestured to the sky, "And then the stars would all disappear. Fenrir would break away from his bindings and hold the sky and the earth in his jaws."

Fenris lowered his gaze from the sky, back to Hawke. "Why didn't they just kill him?"

"Because…" she said and shook her head as though she thought them to be idiots, "they said that the gods respected their holy places so greatly that they did not want to," she gestured quotation marks, "defile them with the blood of the wolf even though the prophecies all foretold that he will be the death of their ruler."

Fenris chuckled suddenly. "Such excuses, that they would die like fools for it."

"I think that was just a pretentious big fat lie. They couldn't kill him, not even when he was in his worst state and in his darkest hour. He was simply too strong and too wise to be destroyed." Then she looked up at the sky again. "The end of the world was bound to happen either way. It did not matter."

Fenris watched through dazed eyes as she drank more of the wine in a glass that seemed self-replenishing. The sky darkened behind her, but bright, warm street lanterns on the quays filled up the outside night. Only the floor of the gondola itself was veiled in dreary shadow.

Her cool confidence chilled him. It chilled him that she had so fearlessly touched him, body and soul, and she was telling this story without much care that he would misunderstand and interpret as he wished. To be fair, it chilled him to think that nothing in his dreadful bestial nature repelled her in the first place.

"So Fenrir brought the end of the world as he broke free from his bonds?" Fenris asked, furrowing his brows.

Hawke shook her head suavely with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she smiled, "He was part of it, but he did not cause it. The greed of the world, of the gods and men alike, the cruelty and havoc they caused, they all brought the end of the world. In so, the world restored itself to peace."

"Without an end, there can be no peace," Fenris said quickly, though he had not resolved from where he had heard those words.

"There was also a mighty serpent," Hawke said and winked at him nonchalantly as though to pertain to the viper he had once named her, "it was cursed to tangle around the world and forever eat its tail until he would swallow himself whole. And that way –"

" – was the day the world ended," Fenris finished contemplatively.

"The ruler of the gods battled the wolf and he was swallowed by it, and another powerful one battled the serpent and died to it too. The other gods, good and evil, fought other creatures and died just as well." She gestured philosophically, her eyes alight with tranquility. "Beneath the sky, people fled their homes, and the sun became black while the earth sank into the sea, the stars vanished, steam rose and the flames touched the heavens."

Fenris's didn't answer, instead watched her think on it as she beheld the vault of the night sky. She then started to recite.

Brothers will fight

and kill each other,

sisters' children

will defile kinship.

It is harsh in the world,

whoredom rife

—an axe age, a sword age

—shields are riven—

a wind age, a wolf age—

before the world goes headlong.

No man will have

mercy on another.

It sates itself on the life-blood

of fated men,

paints red the powers' homes

with crimson gore.

Black become the sun's beams

in the summers that follow,

weathers all treacherous.

Then Hawke finished the poem very firmly, with half-lidded eyes, "Do you still seek to know? And what?"

Fenris looked down and pondered on it. For a moment he thought this might have meant that the wolf in question was but an impending necessary force that instead of bringing disaster, it brought upon the world hope. Then he finally got the courage to ask, "What about the river of hope?"

Hawke smiled warmly. "After the flames came, all the world was submersed into the water. Into Fernir's river of hope."

"So he saved the world," Fenris said calmly.

"Afterward, the world resurfaced anew and fertile," Hawke said and gestured. "And there was peace like never before. All surviving gods and men had learned from their blunder."

_You take a breath and look around, and start anew,_ her past words came back into Fenris's ears.

With a more serene face than ever, Fenris then asked slowly, "What did Hildegaard do?"

She laughed all of a sudden and put a hand in her red hair, "What does it matter?"

Fenris smiled quickly. "Isn't she important to the tale?"

Hawke shook her head and opened her mouth halfway. "None of them are important."

"I would still like to know," Fenris pressed calmly. He entangled his fingers and looked at her as though he said he was not going to leave it be. She understood it and smiled.

"She had the power to revive the dead in battlefields and used it to maintain the ones who would do good in the world, if time hadn't taken theirs so quickly," Hawke said, then looked down. "Valkyries were the 'choosers of the slain'. They chose the ones who died in battle. Hildr or," she rolled her eyes, "Hildegaard, played a bit with technicalities and in a way, rebelled against the ruler of the gods, the one who made her. She rose higher than her own predicament. She found a loophole, if you will," she gestured and smiled widely. "She… resolved to be more than what she was created for, what her nature dictated her to be." She winked to Fenris and shot him a silver grin. "She resolved to be a guardian angel."

Now her first use of magic when she saved him in the mansion, all the other times thereafter, and especially the Deep Roads incident, not to mention her massive healing in the Antivan catacombs that brought her to absolute crazy afterwards, they bore a certain fragrance of all that was poetic. She protected Fenris from the start, and used the 'borrowed time' to bring out from him all that was good that he had been a stranger to before he had met her. Then he remembered a discussion they had on his roof, where Fenris once said he was but a shadow of a man, and she would bring that shadow in the world for everyone to see. The light that she was, held hands with the shadow and followed each other wherever they went, like inseparable friends wed to one another by nature itself. But apart from lousy metaphors, Hawke was indeed, like he thought all those years ago, something else. She was a symbol of rising up each time you fall, and breaking free from predicaments bestowed upon by others. And even with all her flaws that annoyed him at first, what was most important was this: She didn't let him twist into the wind.

And the great wolf… that wolf was not him. Fenrir was not him. And the little wolf made the name Fenris was not him either. Perhaps though, in a way, the gods saw him as the ultimate beast that would bring upon them unholy destruction, but secretively, the universe dictated the wise wolf to be a bringer of good once out of those shackles. Fenrir was not a dismal failure. They bound him to buy more time, but his growth and his years were but preparation to gather his strength, rather than weaken him. He was wise not to convert his strength into weakness in all those years. After all, being the strongest creature of them all, he was the only one who could destroy himself. He could have destroyed himself if he so wished. He could have succumbed to his own lethality against himself.

The only thing that was surely him though, resounded from the way she spoke his name. There was no mythological or fatalistic meaning conveyed to it. He was not some bizarre wreckage that somehow fascinated her. She was not either, as it turned out. The name though, there was a warm sound that made it. There was only a melody, a whisper, a force of something good, that gave his name the sound it deserved. Recognition, acceptance, hope and strength. Nothing of that sound set a tone to despair.

Would it not for that distinct tune of that name he heard out of the mouths of so few – compared to the poison out of so many – yet enough people which simply believed in him, did he not sometimes feel, somewhere deep down in the caverns and remnants of his soul, that there was the remotest, slimmest wisp of a chance that he was good and he could thrive?

He was not a dismal failure.

Then another  _wisp_  of a thought tickled his soul. One to which he was just as much a stranger as the next man was, but not even a battalion of hunters could drown away and kill its evermore powerful luster – That his name had always and for a long time, felt safe in her mouth.

He beckoned suddenly, for her to give him the brush and the picture. Hawke nodded and reached for them, then stretched her arm out to give to him.

He gazed at the portrait for a moment. He saw a man whose green eyes were soulful, the very mirror of patience. He took those who crossed his path indiscriminately except for their nature and the power they held over others. Therefore, he would not judge by age, physical endowments, or blessings bestowed by nature or fate. He had no pride or vanity to lead him to a hierarchy of intended cruelty, but in turn had one simple rule: be good or be dead.

The rampant greenery in his eyes said however, that he did not enjoy the act of killing.

It also said that he was burdened by a night creature that hovered in the deep shadows. A dusty, peaceful creature who enjoyed his time alone and away from the music of the world just as much as he despised it, for in truth he could never really shut down his ears to that music.

There was an uglier, degraded and utterly blasphemous music he wanted to cancel out.

He thought he heard people whispering in the ancient Tevene tongue. He was not going to allow this! He would not go mad. Enough! The only soul he had ever truly felt like sipping the coffee for to know if it was just alright said, "Live." It was time for action. To get up and get going. He was suddenly all strength and purpose. In contrast, his long nights of mourning and brooding had been equivalent to his ritual initiation; surviving death and agony had been the intoxicant; comprehension had been the transformation.

It was over now, he had escaped that life and he was arguably free, and the meaningless world was tolerable and need not be explained. And never would it be, and how foolish he had ever been to think so. The facts of his new predicament warranted action.

But how did Fenris look to that meaningless tolerable world?

At times he looked shrewd and even hateful. He knew plenty. When others looked at him, his green eyes were unflinching and passive.

Yes, there was this extremely unnerving mask he inadvertently, or perhaps deliberately yet ever unconsciously wore. It sculpted an elf so harsh and cold that he seemed to have forgotten what it ever meant to have a soul or be in pain. Indeed, he always seemed to people as if he had forgotten overnight, if he ever knew it. A quick killer, a pitiless and seemingly thoughtful but eternally secretive thing. He appeared low-voiced, unintentionally vicious, glacial, forbidding, ungiving, a wanderer through the forests of the far north, like a slayer of giant bears and white tigers, an indifferent legend to some untamed tribe and a miserable resentful nobody walking the lonely dark streets of civilized Kirkwall, something more akin to a prehistoric reptile than an elf or a man.

_That_  Fenris, that seemed virtually useless to anyone but himself.

Yet still Fenris, who had most ironically never vanished, who had always been known to those few people he worked with… and who was easy to track and just as easy to abandon.

But then again, forget this horrific effigy of a resigned, abysmal and dejected soul. Forget, forget, forget.

He would always forget, for there was also in him the kind of perceptive creature who enjoyed listening to the whispers of a melody in front of him that was giving forth her piercing and irresistible song with no sought for personal gain and who was also indiscriminate towards the ones she either fancied or despised. The kind of remediable, hopeful music of a fellow lost soul which could very accurately bring the burned remnants of his soul back to life and push him however gently to look into the mirror and behold the other, good and honorable things about him he also stubbornly resolved to forget and remain but a moral failure and a pale ghost that roamed the earth in that darting silence. It made him speak. It made him howl. It made him unlock the door that pushed those burned remnants down and instead propel them out with a tremendous light not very different than her own.

She was there, first and foremost, whenever he needed her, and where no other ever had been before.

At times, perhaps because of this, he felt a huge exhilaration, a freedom from all falsehoods and conventions, all means by which a soul or body can be held hostage. And then the awesome nature of this freedom spread itself out around him when she was there as if his mansion did not exist, as if the darkness knew no walls.

Hawke, ever the maverick and the laughing trickster. Shorter than him, even he knew though he kept silent about it as not to anger her with a remark that would only sound arrogant from him, with huge warm dual-colored eyes, light with green and dark with brown, and thick flashy red hair, only very delicately square of jaw, with a generous beautifully shaped rosy mouth and skin pale by the cold of her mother country. A lady who was not by far a glass of fashion, but evermore the fan of armory and pointy, sturdy, dark items of clothing that only subtly showed the eternal visage of her femininity; the most bold and disregarding dusty vagabond on occasion, a loner, wanderer, a heart-breaker she could have been dime a dozen, and a wiseass with no equal other than himself on most occasions.

Of course, there were many times in which he would find no words to either talk or battle her, because there were times in which time seemed to stop and he would behold in front of him a powerful beauty out of what felt like the deepest and most ancient soul of Ferelden, fierce with the moral fiber of the old Knight class amongst the strange and independent populace of her country.

When one first sees Hawke, she seems too beautiful to hurt anyone.

That made a terrible contradiction in his eyes in the Alienage when he saw her and the immense gore she had made out of the Tevinter soldiers all on her own. She was too ravishing for any man and should be the grandest envy of females. And when she walked, she moved as a wraith throughout the world, utterly divorced from it, as if the places are not real to her, and she, the ghost of a dancer, seeks for some perfect setting she alone can find. That was something Fenris resounded with very greatly with his being himself.

There were only fleeting recollections of that constant aura wrapped around them both, that night of rising into the stars, of seeing the scope of life in its cycles, of accepting perfectly just for a little while that the moon would always be changing, and the sun would set as it always rose.

Perhaps Hawke and Fenris both fancied within, that they were fellow victims of a powerful intellectual morality, an infatuation with the concept of purpose, indifferent to roots, race or fate, two lost ones, and veterans of the same war.

Then there was this dilemma of her powers. Her skills and strength as a warrior certainly rivaled his own and he would never wish to find himself one day having to battle her as she did Armand in that terrible setting. A duel at Satinalia, that was more pretend and dance around for show than anything else and the only thing he had striven to be precise with was not to cut her dress. Anything else was but a friendly dance, indeed. A real battle with all their strength and will, would have been the death of both of them.

And yet she could also kindle objects and men alike into fire with the power of her mind, form rainstorms and vanish in the dark sky, slay whoever and whatever menaced her, and yet she did not wish to and strove as much as she could to have no part in that world. More than that, she seemed so harmless, forever feminine though indifferent to gender, a wan and plaintive woman whom he wanted to close in his arms.

She was ever quick of wit and tongue and eager for reasonable solutions, possessed of infinite patience – beneath the mask of utter impulsivity –, a grand speck of unquenchable curiosity and a refusal to give up on the fate of herself, or of her family, or of her friends, or of this world. No knowledge can defeat her; tempered by fire and time, she was too strong for the horrors that pegged at her at every step and the last events in the catacombs forever proved it yet again.

She thought often times that he saw her as a mage brat who knew nothing, and he knew plenty. That she was loaded with easy and whatever kept her so alive and animated and quick to survive and work and butt into the affairs of almost anyone she had a problem with was but a ripe sense of childish freedom as an undefeated warrior who no one would guess was also an apostate. But unbeknownst to her for a long time, he had always suspected her own suffering had been terrible; he did not sought however, perhaps out of an unconscious feeling of empathy, to break the great and feisty carapace of her demeanor to discover some raw bloody tragedy beneath it. After all, patience he had plenty and in her words it would have spoiled all the fun. To know Hawke, there is always time.

Yes, Hawke, not a bad friend to have, and one for whom he would lay down his life as he had already done a few many times before, one for whose love and companionship he had often times hoped in his most private dark corner of his soul to conserve, and one whom he more often than not found maddening and fascinating and intolerably annoying; one without whom he could exist, but cannot bear to live.

Then he quickly brushed off the name  _Fenrir_  with his gauntlet and wrote in white letters, with a curiously more precise calligraphy,  _Fenris_. The first letter he painted in full, rampant lines that seemed to catch wings as the steady color stretched and flew away, but was forever tangled in its homey roots. He gave it back to her with a cold, patient expression.

She looked at it only for a flash of a second, then shot him a great smile, "Rebellious are we?"

To that, Fenris raised the glass of dark wine and returned her smile with a triumphantly wide grin as he leaned behind, "Suffice it to say, I am to enjoy the irony."

* * *

**Back Into The World Yet Again**

When I awoke, it was because the carriage jolted horribly.

" _Kaffar,_ " came a growling sound, just when I opened my eyes.

"Kaffar-har-har to you too," I heard Varric's voice up ahead.

I felt the cool fresh air come down around my neck and felt it on my cheek. The noise however, brought me around. What was it that was crushing me so badly? My vision started to clear, and there came a grand realization as the cherry on top of all realizations that day yet again – I had either just fell with my head in Fenris's lap and that's why he cursed, or I had slept there the entire time and that's why he cursed.

When I turned my head above, I knew, I positively knew, I was in fact there in his lap and caught his eyes staring down at me. I smiled crookedly. "I, uhm, well, yeah."

To my utter surprise, Fenris smiled down at me though with faint air of coldness, so I couldn't really make up if he was annoyed or not when he whispered in his low voice, "Venturing into foreign lands a little early this morning, aren't we?" Perhaps he cursed because my head had viciously crushed the chance of him having a family someday, now I wagered.

"What morning? It's dark," I said while rubbing my eyes, as if that was that was the thing of grandest importance in our current setting.

"We are deep into the forest," Fenris said calmly, looking up above.

"Yeah we are," I mumbled quickly and then wanted to hit myself.

His legs vibrated under me as he chuckled shortly. Then again, as if not for the others to hear, he whispered, "I had the strangest dream."

I gulped suddenly and looked above and my eyes went almost painfully in the back of my head as I tried to make up the scenery through the small window. "Not as strange as mine, I wager."

Indeed, the heavy touch of the night was approaching the crack of dawn, but even so the faintest of light was fading fast. The forest was too thick to be safe it seemed, but the more dire matter was that Varric and Isabela were picking their way counting on the instinct of the horses more than their own failing vision. The pale half-moon seemed in love with the clouds. The sky itself was nothing but bits and pieces thanks to the canopy of the foliage above us, never mind the covers of the carriage itself. Alas, we shouldn't complain. At least we had the safety of cover.

Fenris whispered back very quietly, "We were riding a gondola back in the city that was driving itself and we were drinking from the one glass of wine that seemed to be self-replenishing."

I widened my eyes as well as my mouth, remaining speechless. While stuttering horribly, I finally asked, "That's it?"

He furrowed his brows as if to catch the memory again. "I don't quite remember much." He raised a courageous little eyebrow and looked back down on me. "What did you dream about?"

I swallowed deeply and wished the carriage would jolt again. With the quickness of wit, my tongue let slip, "I was having tea with Senechal Bran and he paid me a compliment."

"Oh?" Fenris said, his expression most amused, yet cold. He looked back forward. "I think your dream won in terms of utter insanity."

"Dreams are like that," I muttred with a hand over my forehead. I looked up at him. "How did I get here?"

"You… fell?" Fenris muttered coldly, without looking down anymore. "I certainly did not put you there."

"Then… why are you not smacking me over the head or something?" I whispered sharply.

Fenris appeared to not have heard me, but then for some reason he started frowning as he looked down at me. "You look awful."

"Why thank you," I muttered rapidly with narrowed eyes.

"You're welcome," Fenris said unemotionally, then he raised an eyebrow, "But in all seriousness, you look weaker than when you went to sleep," he whispered again as if this was not meant for the others to hear, but their sitting was all open for the public eye to see without conveying much importance. "Hawke."

"Mmm, heh- what?" I muttered. I had my eyes closed and could scarcely bring them to open again, now I realized.

"You're fading," I heard Fenris say.

"No, I – _uh,_ " I mumbled and yawned heavily, "I am ready to," I yawned again, "take over."

"Yes, and my little toe there is the Queen of Ferelden," I heard Fenris mumble.

I moved my head, but couldn't open my eyes. I yawned again and said in-between, "Ferelden has no queen."

"Well there, you've shed even greater clarity to the point I was trying to make," came again his grumpy voice.

"No-"

I suddenly felt a hand very cool and smooth over my head, petal-soft yet heavy as it stroked my hair it seemed. "Sleep."

"N-"

I couldn't focus my eyes. Darkness suddenly obscured everything, and out of this darkness there rose a shape before me, a figure bending over me, Fenris looking right into my face as his hair fell down on me. "If you prefer," came his deep voice ever firmly, "I could now commence to that smacking over the head you mentioned earlier."

"Mhm," I mumbled, not at all comprehending that I moved on my side and buried my face against his waist.

"I thought so," whispered Fenris flatly as I felt him rise back up. I was utterly imprisoned into darkness, and the numbing of my senses was most annoying. All I did feel quite pronounced, or maybe I'd imagined it or felt it wrong, was a coarse hand touching my cheek gently, almost respectfully. I could hear distantly the sounds of the galloping horses and Varric's storytelling-mode voice engaged, and some lonely tunes of early birds singing. I was safe, at least that much was so.

Finally sleep came. It came totally and completely and sweetly; the net of nerves which had held me suspended and maddened simply dissolved, and I sank down into a dreamless darkness this time. I was conscious of that sweet point where nothing for the moment matters except to sleep, to replenish and to fear yet no dreams, and then nothing.

* * *

**2 days later, Somewhere close of Ansburg**

Honorably enough, there lurked a great turmoil in my soul, which only meant I had to rapidly resolve to push it down and terminate it with alcohol. I drank, well, I drank more than I could count on my fingers, and it didn't seem to care that Antivan brandy was that one little drink that made me utterly pissy and hot-headed rebellious. Remember my angry philosophical rant to Sebastian in which I somehow managed to scream "orgasm" in a speech about religion?

I was at the back of the carriage with Fenris again, while Varric was in the front with Isabela but with his back turned to the road, and he was telling the story of how he bullshitted both the Coterie and the Orlesians into giving him the brandy meant for the Viscount from the Antivan Prince at Kirkwall's Independence Day.

"And Olimpy-dingly-ding didn't even flinch! Not one hiss, shudder, nothing, even if they were pretentiously insulting us! The bastard kept shooting them his charming smile and they bought our bullshit in the end, can you believe it?" Varric shouted happily.

"Hhh-onestleh, I dooh," I mumbled incoherently, laughing to no end. I was smoking my legendary cigarillo inside, which made Fenris want to strangle me,  _and_ which I suspect he magically did, through his thoughts, because I was coughing like a mad rat.

"Then I drank my sorrows away with him, since Grumpy McCouldntCareLess here didn't wanna join in our most offensive vagabond setting," Varric said meanly while pointing at Fenris.

"I did not join because I was already tired of drunken maidens stumbling upon my feet," Fenris said in annoyance, crossing his arms.

"Pfh-well, you seem to have regained your strength, Sir," Varric chuckled at pointed at me, who was smoking in nonchalance and sipping my brandy without even much listening.

"We are sitting down," Fenris articulated unemotionally.

"And I am not a maiden," I said confidently, raising my bottle towards them.

"No?" Varric asked sweetly. "I didn't spot any red chest hair in your cleavage the other day, Madam."

"Miss, please," I corrected in amusement. "And not red chest hair."

"Strange," Varric cupped his chin. "It says it is not a maiden, yet it demands of me to address  _it_ as Miss."

"Varr- _hec,_ " I mumbled and with my eyes closed, swaying with my head. "You chhoud call me Bob  _h-_ and I wouldn't care lesser."

"Could you care morer?" Varric asked with a raised eyebrow, mocking me.

"The morest I care right now," I gestured and almost hit Fenris over the face if he hadn't dodged my hand entirely, "Is to get backinmaownbed."

"Whoever gave her the third bottle is a pitiful little idiot," Fenris muttered grumpily.

I narrowed my eyes and swayed, and pretended to have Zevran's accent as I gestured, "Now why do you sting?"

"That is the alcohol burning what is left of your smoked throat," Fenris said calmly, snatching the bottle away from me before I realized a few too many seconds later.

"Now why did you do that?" I asked in outrage, but completely forgot the next second, so I repeated drunkenly, "Now why did you do that?"

"Let her drink, Broody, she deserves a good old ride under the hippity-hoppity moon after all she's been through," Varric protested sweetly.

Fenris was scowling at both of us, from what I could see, and remember. "I will give it back to you if you can tell me who is ruling your country at the moment."

"Some bastard no doubt, most of them are," I mumbled ineloquently.

"And the name of that regal bastard is?" Fenris asked grumpily.

"Al-, Ah…" I muttered, all too shrinking from the fearsome waiting eyebrow that was arching towards Heaven on Fernris. "A-"

"Seven more letters to go," Varric chuckled lively.

"-loe ver-," I shouted.

"Those are only six," Fenris muttered sharply with half-lidded eyes.

"Well who  _sh-o_ ught you th- _dat,_ I wonder?" I protested arrogantly in my drunkenness. "

"Some drunk back in Kirkwall, most of them are," Fenris said grumpily and took a good sip of my damn brandy.

I pressed my lips in annoyance and could scarce remember the line I prepared to give him. Forgetting so quickly everything, and with all colors and sounds and motion amalgamating into what one could only call a flush of utter oatmeal, I caught my head into my hands. "St- _ahp_ schpinning," I cried.

"Schmooth," Varric mused and threw a little bottle of brandy in my lap.

Instinct still not forgotten, I caught it right before Fenris could snatch it ruthlessly away from me, but as I did I scratched his hand and he growled shortly, because the nails caught his markings.

"I-" I stuttered, keeping the bottle between my knees, devil that I still am.

Fenris shot me an angry glance and muttered, "Let me guess." He raised a nonchalant little eyebrow. "You're  _shorry_?" he asked mockingly and drank from the first stolen bottle.

"Deeply," I said flatly, and clawed away my own bottle open.

"Forgive me if I don't believe you in this state," Fenris said coldly, "and thus cannot take you seriously."

"I forgive you," I nodded calmly with my eyes closed. I hit my head on the board. I didn't seem to notice. I stretched my hand out. "Thus I request that you give me my bottle back."

He stood there with his arms crossed and drinking away without caring. "I reject your request and hereby give you humble notice that you're spilling."

"Wha? I-  _oh._ " A quarter of my bottle watered away the floor, keeping up the health of the garden that made our tension. "Shit."

"Shit, indeed," Fenris said nonchalantly, almost about to chuckle at my struggle to brush the wetness that made a good half of my pants in questionable places.

Then came the stupidest idea the utter vacuity that was my mind had ever ever ever tickled the sanctum of unreason. "Hey I have an idea."

"Hey I have an idea," I repeated, without knowing I repeated.

"Is it the same idea?" Varric asked in amusement.

"I haven't even said it!" I shouted childishly.

"Say it again in your head, like thirty more times, then resolve if you still think it's a bright idea," Fenris said a bit sharply. He was annoyed with me of course, I had to understand, but at that moment all I knew was that I would do whatever I wanted to do and no other fucks were given that day.

"I have not the strength to repeat it that many times, my dear man," I said almost one-eyed.

"You mean you have not the reason," Fenris corrected me.

"I most certainly do!" I shouted and the brandy came up and out of my bottle and onto the ceiling. "Would it not for my raisin, I would have probably set your ass on fire a good half hour ago!"

"Raisin?" Fenris chuckled. "Did I hear correctly?"

I swayed my head, I tried to remember. "Raisin, reason," I gestured in annoyance. "Potato, poh - _tah -_ toh."

"They are not the same thing," Fenris articulated sharply.

I threw my arms up in the air. I could barely catch them back.

"Do you want to hear my idea or not!" I exclaimed in revolt most profound.

"As long as you can blink both eyes at the same time," Fenris said disapprovingly, eyeing me like a dead-set commander, indeed dead-set to be a pain in my ass.

"I stand corrected," I said in protest, almost about to hiss at him. "I should have fireballed your ass a good few hours ago."

"Not within the premises, Hawke," Varric protested calmly, shooting me worried glances.

"Most certainly not!" I said courteously.

"How true," Fenris said to Varric. "Her reason is indeed as she said, not far off from the size of a raisin."

"Do we have a problem, Fenrir?" I asked, without even realizing in my ineloquence what I muttered.

His eyebrows furrowed urgently. "What did you call me?" Fenris asked in alarm, eyes widened.

" _Phh h -_ rys," I drawled. "I called you Fenris. Is that not your name?"

He locked that scowl for a few more seconds, before he leaned back in the seat and drank away. "Correct," he muttered.

"Anyheway, back to my ideahah," I mumbled again happily with half-lidded eyes. "Give me a cigarillo, Tethras."

Varric nodded quickly and searched his jacket for another of those life burning bitches. "Catch, Pantaloons."

I didn't catch it. It would have been a terrible damp waste of a good expensive cigarillo if not for Fenris who surprisingly caught it in time, and then with not enough disgust in the world, threw it in my lap where it landed between my legs.

"Sankyou," I nodded with my eyes.

"So what's this big idea?" Varric asked in entertainment, resting his chin against his fist.

I had already forgotten.

Never mind, I remembered.

"I'm going to make a dragon," I said childishly with a big smile and lit my cigarillo with a little magic. "A big mighteh dragon."

"How big is big?" Varric asked urgently, still smiling though.

I ignored him and sought to channel my magic that I would shoot out of my mouth after I took a long enough drag. But the first drags were always for pleasure. I blew out some circles nonchalantly around the carriage.

"Oh, that trick again," Fenris remembered, arms crossed and drinking much hypocritically.

"What trick?" Varric asked eagerly, his eyebrows lifting and his teeth showing.

"This trick!" I uttered happily.

Then, the last thing I saw, in terrible slow motion even – ironical to the rapidness of drunken vision and perception – was Fenris widening his eyes and terror and about to tackle me as he realized what I wanted to do, and what I had not realized was something I did not want to do. I could almost hear in deep, extreme slowness as he growled  _Noooo._

Then came out the fire, shooting and blasting like a rifle up above and out of the covers of the carriage, because I had not remembered that there were traces of alcohol of my own doing up above on the ceiling. The firebolt shot out and made a huge hole in the covers, and we all saw it flying away up in the blue sky and exploding just into a flock of terrified little birds. The carriage jolted with the utterly frightened horses and it moved left to right horribly and made Isabela almost fall out by the edge.

" _Aluvin valla khal,_ " Fenris growled urgently. " _Festis kevett femina._ "

"What in blazes did you do?!" Isabela screamed.

"Pun intended!" Varric screamed angrily.

"Shit, shit, shit!" I shouted in alarm and rapidly created ice and melted it into water to splash up and above in order to put out the carriage that caught on fire in one too many places.

"I should have smacked you unconscious when I had the chance," Fenris shouted angrily next to me.

"Yeah keep screaming in my ear – that will help me concentrate!" I shouted back in annoyance.

But the worst part was yet to harrow upon us all.

"Uh, guys…" Isabela muttered frightened. "Guys…"

"This is the last time you drink on the road, Hawke," Fenris commanded me ruthlessly. "Kevesh."

"Like I said, keep cursing in my ear, that will CERTAINLY help," I growled back while splashing the water everywhere around the gigantic parched hole.

"GUYS!" Isabela screamed.

"What?!" we all shouted.

We looked forward past her and saw the most ridiculous sight of fate slapping me across the face of my utter impossible stupidity and bad luck.

Two Templars, tanned skin, one blonde, one black-haired with a fuzzy beard, had twisted and turned and stopped at the last gallop of their horses. They came down and approached us urgently.

"Is everything alright here?" the blonde younger Templar asked in an Antivan-sounding accent. Rialto-based, I was sure. Shit.

"Yes, yes, most wonderful," I mumbled and stumbled on my feet, Fenris and Varric catching me both, and as I did only a little more water squirted from my fingers in the harrowing silence that now made this terrible setting.

"Come outside of the vehicle, Miss," the black-haired, older, deeper-voiced Templar said as he was very slowly preparing to reach to his sheath.

Being drunk on Antivan brandy,  _and_ being myself,  _and_ somehow forgetting everything that dictated my instincts and knowledge, I sat on the back seat again and smiled drunkenly as I beckoned to them warmly, "No, I'm good, you come in!"

They all shot me glances, both parties no doubt screaming murder and accusation.

"I would prefer it if you did, Miss," the black-haired, blue-eyed big Templar pressed.

"What is this regarding?" Fenris intervened politely.

"Yeah," I said cockily and stumbled. "Do we have a problem here?"

"I'm not in the position to confirm that," the manlier Templar stated vaguely.

_Well, then up yours, Templar_ , I thought angrily, grabbed the bottle to take a few sips. Or perhaps I said it out loud and didn't realize.

"Is that alcohol?" the Templar pressed with a scowl. "And on the covers? Is that what caused the explosion?"

I took another sip of nonchalance. "I'm not in the position to confirm that."

"Alright, this is obviously a big misunderstanding," came Varric charmingly. "We were playing with fire, and well, fire played back with us. It happens."

"Indeed it seems that way," the black-haired Templar snarled with control.

"Well, if there's nothing moar," I mumbled and drank again.

"And how did you stop the flames exactly?" the black-haired, more perceptive and accusatory Templar asked with narrowed eyes.

I was going to go all hot-headed stingy again, but Varric cut me in time, "Water of course! Now we can't put out fires with more alcohol, now can we?" he said in a very sweet charismatic tone.

"Unless you have a brain the size of a walnut," I said cockily, although I shouldn't have been the one speaking.

The blonde-haired younger Templar was about to say something, but the black-bearded one came first. "Perhaps this was a," he paused and raised an eyebrow as he sized me up, "misunderstanding."

I raised my pointy finger at him. "Indeed, that was a terrible misunderstanding." Then I added sharply, "Now leave before there's a terrible misunderstanding between my foot and your ass."

That was it, for the black-haired Templar approached again and growled, "I cannot help but take issue with your disgraces."

I turned my head to him nonchalantly, "And I cannot help but take issue with the nasty glances you keep shooting me."

"I cannot help but also notice you have a rather pronounced inconvenience with us," the black-bearded Templar articulated.

"She's an angry drunk, forgive my friend," Varric said charmingly. "She's in good hands."

The black-haired Templar shot Varric a narrow-eyed suspicious glance and remained silent for a second, maybe to blow the horn for his one lonely neuron to finally understand they were being asses. Instead he said, "There is a fugitive female Enchanter from the Circle in Ansburg dubbed apostate that is allegedly also recently deemed a blood mage. We are currently looking after this certain female."

"Allegedly," I articulated mockingly, then snorted and looked at the others. "That is Templar code for we don't know what the hell we're doing, but we're going at it anyway."

"And how may I ask do you know that, Miss?" the black-haired Templar pressed.

"I have a friend in the Guard," I said confidently and shrugged. "I wager it's the same code of fake convictions."

"Do you not have the phylactery to trace this apostate down?" Fenris suddenly intervened in a voice that said he knew plenty of what he was talking about.

The black-haired Templar caught his serious tone and answered him, "It has been recently broken. Now it is fairly a wild goose chase."

"Do I look like a wild goose?" I asked mockingly. I didn't feel it quite yet, but Fenris took a step in front of me. Then did I only realize that water and ice were still squirting out of my hands.

"Forgive my remark, for it is  _'_ stupid' Templar code, but you do sound like wild goose," said the black-bearded unconvinced Templar.

"Oh," I stuttered, a bit freezing, either from the ice or from my fright. "Then by all means resume to your chase."

"I think that is not necessary," pressed the black-haired Templar and went for the sword in his sheath.

It was final. Once a Templar was onto you, his numskull lyrium abilities would trace the magic in your system as soon as they commenced to it. This was final and I had not but one dagger stuffed in my pants now. And my friends were all going to be in trouble if we didn't manage to defend ourselves. No. I would not allow that. My heart was in my mouth, but I was going to step in and let myself over to the Templars. I could get out of their hands later. Even in my drunkenness, I did not lose that one wisp of reason that said this was not my friends' battle to harrow because of my absolute stupidity.

A second too late I took that step, for what cut me was Fenris. "Enough," he growled. He stepped out of the carriage and stood with his back straight like a soldier and took a bow in front of the Templars. _What the hell?_  everyone probably asked, all only stealthily reaching for their weapons in silence.

"I am Knight-Lieutenant, F-" he paused only for a flash, "Finufaranell," he articulated in control and coughed, every one of us trying not to snort, "From the Circle of Ferelden." He pointed at me sharply. "And I have this 'wild goose' in my custody. Therefore I must disappoint you, but you have the wrong goose."

"Forgive me for asking, Knight-Lieutenant," said the wiseass black-haired Templar with narrowed eyes, "But how exactly did an elf in Ferelden come to that rank?"

"I do not forgive your disgrace," Fenris pressed commandingly. "Perhaps the Circle in Ansburg or Rialto or wherever you come from has not yet set the tone for fairness and indiscrimination in our modern times," he said with an edge to his voice and crossed his arms, "but the Circle in Ferelden has, all under the righteous wing of our good king Alistair."

Seeing how the indomitable Fenris pressed so hot-headedly with the sharp, spitting edge of patriotism, the blonde-haired Templar immediately intervened, "No need. This is indeed a terrible misunderstanding." He nodded politely to Fenris. "My fellow Lieutenant and I trust that you will not let her out of your sight and endanger any of our citizens."

Fenris shrugged. "I keep her sedated."

The black-haired wiser Templar narrowed his eyes again, but instead of asking exactly how that worked, he shot a glance to him. "I understand that the Templars in Ferelden are much more," he raised an accusatory eyebrow, "open-minded and free with their way of conduct and apparel, but how does a former Dalish take interest with this kind of duty?"

I didn't for the love of bullshit know what was happening, but Fenris didn't seem to flinch or yield. He kept his tone sharp and flat, "I am  _not_  Dalish. But with our more  _open-minded_ approach, there have been recent progresses in perfecting our abilities." He crossed his arms again proudly. "All because of the humble generosity of our good king Alistair."

I was going to snort and blast my brains out, my lungs were utterly collapsing, and the muscles in my torso were fiercely pulsating from the incredible bullshit Fenris could pull with such an unconquerable and resolute attitude.

"Oh?" asked the blonde-haired Templar eagerly. "What  _do_ they do exactly?"

"I do not have time for this," Fenris pressed fearsomely, his eyes falling halfway to shoot them trembling. "Have your Knight-Commander write a letter to our own in Ferelden if you wish to dabble into our abilities."

"They're lyrium, you dumbskull," said the black-bearded Templar and nudged the other. "They probably solve our little addiction problem."

"See, that wasn't so hard was it," Fenris uttered superiorly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must hurry," he gestured with pronounced discomfort, "all with my second blasted carriage this filthy mage has ever so nicely ruined yet again."

"Well, what else can you do to me, really?" I pretended to shout angrily. "If you don't get me back in one piece, they're gonna strip you of your rank all with your mighty elven dignity."

"Keep silent, apostate," Fenris fired back sharply, without even turning to look at me. He bowed to the Templars shortly. "Farewell."

"Farewell," the black-haired Templar nodded chivalrously.

I could have kissed him right then and there, but I feared he would have viciously slapped me out of consciousness if I did.

As the Templars hopped back on their horses and drove off while shooting us strange glances yet again, Varric came all over Fenris and patted him on the hip. "Knight-Leutenant Finufaranel." He broke into laughter. "I wouldn't have even begun to think of such a perfect name for a Ferelden elf, or for well, you, in all my years with you, Captain."

I stood corrected. I stood all the hell corrected and the gods could strike me down now and I still couldn't believe that Fenris did this. I didn't believe him in the catacombs when he told the story of our little conversation on the roof of the Hanged Man, but now I was all out of protests and bluff calls. And boy did he bluffed it with remarkable invulnerability and command with those Templars… He was the proud owner of the Amell Estate indeed. And I could scarce bring myself not to jump at his neck.

"I-" I stuttered, all tense and petrified.

"You're  _welcome_ ," Fenris articulated bitterly. But his words were labored carefully in front of the others for me to understand "Say nothing. You don't have to."

At that I went to him, running, childlike, flinging myself at his neck, kissing his icy cheek a thousand times despite his contained and mock-disdainful smile. And despite the others seeing. It was after all, a natural reaction, I thought to myself.

"Well spank me on the ass and call me Granny," Isabela said and stretched her arms in smiles. "Fenris bullshitting Templars all on his own, without even the slightest help from the dwarven paragon and ship captain of bullshit." She entangled her fingers and inhaled. "I couldn't be prouder of you right now."

"You can be prouder by shutting your mouth," Fenris uttered grumpily, appearing as though he didn't even notice the crazy clown mage that was clutching at his neck and owing him everything from here on to eternity.

"You get a thousand drinks on my tab for this, my friend," Varric nodded charmingly, all silvery grins to contain his utter relief at how close we were to really be in trouble. "And it's my name-day very soon, so you know it's gonna be terrific."

"I'll hold you to that," Fenris said flatly, still not looking at me.

I kissed his cheek again with a loud  _Muah,_ pressing it against my lips as hard as I could, despite the loud rolling of his eyes and the distressed grimaces he made. When Isabela came into the carriage all exhausted and ready to sleep and Varric hopped in the front seat, Fenris gave me his first wink in history, as grumpy and unnerving as it was. Or maybe it was a flinch.

 


	42. Questions And Answers: Lie Just A Little

"Good friends nod and understand. Great friends don't take no for an answer." – Varric

* * *

"You're quickly getting on my nerves, elf," Varric pressed angrily as he dragged Fenris out of the Hanged Man in the deep cold night.

"Well, it's not as if I needed a ladder or anything," Fenris mumbled arrogantly, stumbling on his feet and deeply drunk.

"You're drunk," Varric said. "What a surprise, you've outdone me."

"Sad isn't it?" Fenris drawled and swayed on his feet.

"That you're both idiots?" Varric asked directly.

Fenris narrowed his eyes and took a step forward as he articulated, "You don't know us."

"Friend, you don't know a thing about a woman until she's drunk  _and_ mad at you," Varric pressed again angrily, pointing at him. "You've got your answer, now cool off."

"I must have blacked out when that answered arrived into the harbor of my reason," Fenris muttered rather calmly, looking up in the night sky and getting lost in it, about to fall.

"What the hell is going on in that little forsaken mind of yours?!" Varric shouted at Fenris and was about to hit him.

"Nothing," Fenris articulated flatly, trying to keep straight.

"Exactly, you are most right, Sir!" Varric exclaimed in anger. "Either quit your act or stay away from her, you hear me?" he shouted. "I don't want drama on my fucking name day. Is that clear?"

A few seconds passed, and Fenris finally curled his lips and nodded with a slight hint of irritation, "Affirmative."

"Good," Varric muttered with narrowed eyes. "You're my friends and my affection for you both stretches out of cosmic proportions, but this is ridiculous!"

"I know," Fenris answered quietly. "It is my fault. I will leave her be."

"Whatever you do, just don't screw this up. Not tonight, I mean…," Varric scratched his head and paused, looking away from him. "I've been cheering for you for as long as I can remember."

"Oh?" Fenris asked in surprise, leaning on the wall, half about to fall.

"Not the time for heartbreaking stories, elf," Varric said charmingly. "Come on, let's get you inside. And hands off the yahoo-juice."

"The what?" Fenris drawled as he stumbled into Varric.

He caught the elf in place and dragged him inside, "That."

* * *

Varric was a Leo, and even if she wasn't all that crazy about the ancient mathematics of the night sky, Hawke had learned it from her parents and it made a lot of sense. Leo was the sign of the patriarch and king, and in the same way people such as him exuded dignity and pride with their domain with a distinct, exquisite, most refined little grace, all while remaining the noblest and most modest of souls.

Whatever he considered his – his family, his immense business that made him richer and more influent than the very nobles of Kirkwall all while still remaining in the shadows, his follow-up success, moreover his friends and his home – he boldly protected. Even if his "Kingdom" was small and less than average in a way, he had a lot of power than even Hawke really knew about and he kept his fingers in a lot of pots all reserved and confident. He protected her in a way, with not telling her every little scheme and puppet strings he had in his midst. He presented it in the best of light however and he guarded his world ever more vigilantly – and this they all knew. You wanted to know something, you went straight to Varric. Not even the very Sun knew as much about what was happening over the world as Varric did, or at least as quickly as he did.

Although very sweet and graceful, this overdedication and protection Varric beheld with his tactful skills and refined talents, it made him look a bit territorial and possessive eve if he didn't always show it. No, he kept his mask of nonchalance with the best and comedy that did not usually offend anybody, in contrast with Hawke's rampant humour or the grumpy one of Fenris and really, all other people they worked with. Anders tried to be as charming as Varric but did not really manage it, all with the utterly short-tempered, downright irascible Justice that subdued and perhaps drowned the life out of him in a way or another. Honestly, they never could guess who drowned who first, who sucked the life out of whom first. It seemed at times, more often than not, this question was growing extremely tiring and it depressed the blazes out of everyone.

And there would always come Varric, ready and eager to snap everyone out of their misery and their brooding or exasperations. With a quick uttering of his charming little tongue, that didn't really lie at all to you, he calmed you down and made you swallow the Sun in its wholeness whenever you'd get out of the Hanged Man. A road to sighs, sometimes it seemed, when you parted with his company.

But his friends accepted Varric's "lordship" because they felt he was doing it from affectionate reasons and because he wanted the best for those closest to him. He accepted you, you accepted him. No more whining, signed and sealed in the contract of 8:34 Blessed.

Varric simply radiated a natural dignity, and it didn't take long for Hawke to respect him as he exuded his inner strength and self-confidence all the more quickly than she ever managed to. Yet in all that exquisite march of thunder that he rolled, he seemed the modest of souls, once you got to know him. And indeed, he was modest. Yes, sometimes he looked a bit too proud, but it was all in good reason when he did show it, and it made the others near him keep a distance from messing with him in this way.

Yes, in Varric lay a whole parchment of tales, the burned relics of the purest child at heart, and just as much he thrived aflame with the unbending charisma, sensuality and masculine fragrance of a well-evolved man.

And in his warm, most constant soul, there lay a man most evolved and kind-hearted. He was also very noble, and to Hawke he felt paternal. Benevolent feelings all galore of course, but mostly he did seem to leak this fatherly need to look after her and treat her with that respectful, yet teasing warmth an old man would direct at a young girl just freshly out in her first years of seeming maturity.

And if Hawke hadn't known this at first, she learned it either way very quickly – Varric was very loyal, just like a self-respecting, dedicated king did not abandon his kingdom and those he was responsible for. Indeed, he secretively took responsibility of her, and of others for that matter, even with his ever gleaming aura of self-assurance, content and nonchalance. For him every Tuesday was a good Tuesday. For you, when you were in his presence, every Tuesday was also a good Tuesday. Yes, and Varric tended to stick for the long run with Hawke, just as he stuck with people, with ideas and with projects (he was still pending with his last punishments for her that kept now very patiently, waiting, lurking, for the perfect time to use them, with most affectionate of course). In order for Varric to change his direction or loyalty, there needed something very serious to happen. Nothing that Hawke ever did seemed to be too much for him. Nothing that Fenris ever did, none of his cantankerous, grumpy or waspish attitudes affected him and he did not treat him with disrespect. He joked, Fenris joked back. Sometimes they grumped a bit if the joke felt too sore and they would just change the subject shortly and everything was fine.

That was the thing with Varric: he was the last person in the world to be discriminating and judgemental. Almost nothing unsettled him, and almost nothing made him hold a grudge on somebody, unless of course it was clear that they were "bad" and they did something "bad" to him or to his friends or family. That sufficed his approach to the world.

Of course he was a very open and direct person, even in all his evasions and his use of graceful technicalities as he played the world. But Hawke knew better than to believe this was everything to Varric. They lay in him a great and horrible tale, a sad lake of tears that he showed no soul and he would never do. Not so quickly anyway.

When Varric made a promise, he would keep it for eternity, even if it meant the death of him. That was loyalty and truly that was what his words were, even beyond the beauty of his bullshit and the subtle gentle entanglements of his radiant and rampant written and spoken words. It was a promise of friendship.

And there lay a promise in him to a girl, and this story was the one would never tell. Hawke of course, knew better than to ask. Varric also knew, they lay some terrible story in her as well, and he knew better than to push. They both knew that a great and most disturbing story lay in Fenris as well, although his was more evident, even if it was never told. His predicament was obvious. Hawke's predicament as almost as obvious. The last one to be obvious was consequently Varric.

But Varric was very affectionate, and he was lion-hearted in every sense of the word. His heart was ruled by a lot of strength and longing towards things that could make himself a better person. Surely, he thought there were things that were more important than money. Money for him was a means to control with ease whatever he wanted to control. But what he longed and strived for was purpose. His joy was one of taking actions. There was a lot of warmth, fun and enthusiasm coming from this well-rounded dwarf (no hidden scratch lurking in that).

And once Varric liked Hawke, he became really generous, playful and sincere with her, with no hidden agenda. Actually he had laid his cards out from the start with her, when he basically tackled her in the Merchant's Guild and splurged out all the details of his expedition and what she should do. Then, with no further ado, he glued himself to her and remained with her all the way to do her business and gather up the money. He even allowed her to wake him up during the night with absolutely no notice and she would bring him urgent matters.

And that was something that Varric loved Hawke for, and knew that had been hard for her at first (which he made his duty to quickly make it much easier): she did not know how to ask for help. Within a month, that little pseudo-independent flaw of hers was gone and he was the first one to know her needs and catch her smiles and the last one before going to bed. With Varric it was the easiest of intimacies when it came to friendship for Hawke. It was truly a joy and a laugh to be around him. With Fenris it was a little slower-growing friendship, but funny as it is, in a way he became way better friends with him much quicker than Hawke did with Fenris. At least in all consciousness, this was the case. Of course, they would have known that much clearer if Hawke hadn't fled Kirkwall just when  _all_ three of them really proved they were  _all_ friends. There came of course, half a year in which Varric was left only with Fenris, and sometimes Aveline to battle their wits and drink their sorrows and laugh until morning. And work too, that was also… something.

With Hawke, Varric felt it easier because their personalities were much more alike, their attitudes were colourful and bright when they were together (Hawke still looked the one to scare you shitless and leave you speechless otherwise and if she really wanted to). Fenris was perhaps in reverse – he didn't really wish to scare people shitless and look evermore the wild, untamed and extremely private, hateful and resentful elf, but he did anyway, and when he really wanted to, more often than not, he was a delight and a very funny guy. And that was something Varric quickly connected to and had enough time in those six months to form a bond that would not be under some displaced, mask of pretence in the shadow of Hawke who led them all.

Varric, in all his silence and secret, had helped both Hawke and Fenris separately to right the wrongs of their attitudes, their fears and feelings of inadequacy, and more often than not, he had managed to shape their contours like a painter did his figures, bearing in them all his emotion with the touch of a brush. The world saw the painted figures, their shells of colour, and with any luck, the world would also absorb and see the fullness of their character, their emotions and their thriving natures, the most of their potential and the wildest of their mind could go to. That was also why he loved to write stories, but also liked to tell them. He was the King of all that world, carefully constructing his characters in the image of what was already there, not changing much. He changed their names, their shells, their appearances and some of the details, but the true details that dictated the true tale – they were all there and only a clever eye just like him could spot that truly perfect creation through simple adaptation.

And in all honesty, Varric had helped them more than they would ever know or realize.

And that brings us to the last of this strong description that the author herself wants articulated and in tribute to him, gathering up the fullness of descriptive command in his honour:

What his soul held private, was that he wanted to feel respected and he had been searching for a long time in his secret loneliness, for someone who could make him in turn relax and laugh and who we could share his true wisdom with. Understand, laugh with them, instead of at them, inadvertently and all of a sudden. Because Maker be damned, he could find the fun in anything and that was not some simple, shallow thing. It was actually rooted in the soul, because funny things were "words of spirit". And laughter was the very orgasm of happiness in front of the Sun setting every night and rising again every morning.

Lastly, unbeknownst to many, the lion-heart that Varric was, in all truthfulness needed something very very dire: he needed to feel needed.

Now his name-day was here and Hawke was determined to make the best of it.

For this, this chapter will be all endowed with Varric's words of wisdom. Well, this and the next perhaps 'cause it's a lot happening.

* * *

**Day of Kirkwall Arrival, Hightown Market**

Fenris was not prepared to enjoy the irony of the next thing that he had done. He couldn't hate himself more as he realized, now faced with the entirety of old Kirkwall, that Hawke was in grave danger of self-destruction if she didn't sort the mess that made up her magic every time she wasted it all in urgencies and dire situations. When she said those few little words, he lost it. Ironically, he lost his temper but labored it into very good reason.

"Let's hope I won't ever have to heal or wave or blast anything that does not come out of something concrete and inflammable," Hawke said calmly as they walked up the stairs to the Market.

He truly hated that in all the tornado of his soul and all his fears and problems and feelings, in Fenris lay a logic most profound. He really, really hated it.

Her father was gone, and there was no mage to help Hawke. This was the reality that pressed hidden every day and Hawke resolved to utterly ignore for she had no wish to have part with magic anyway for the better half of all her life. But now it seemed much more than necessary, and her struggle alone was getting tiresome and dangerous.

And what mage in all of Kirkwall could have really helped her now without the slightest chance of getting caught? Who was there, existing in all their incredibly annoying wholeness of character… that would still hold her secret and equally give her a bit of security with her rapidly growing rampant and unsteady magic? The elven blood mage who was at best utterly credulous and at worst viciously stupid to play with demons and call them helpful spirits? Merrill was beyond hopelessness and never in her brightest hour would she have lived up to Hawke's principles and even to her power.

And, with all the screeching and irritating sound of that horrible noise he was soon about to say in his head… who was left to do something about it, to offer even the slightest of helpful gestures?

Who… He cursed himself and would not think his name.

Even if he truly despised that person and in his better days, he would suffice to say that he was utterly too insignificant for him to pay attention to… and despite the ever stronger warnings coming from Zevran… there was truly no hope for Hawke unless…

…  _that mage_ helped her. At least in fairness, and however ugly and nauseating it resounded in his mind…  _that_ mage was still divorced from blood magic and evil sorceries.  _That_ mage was an excellent healer and a fairly exquisite one in the specialty of creation and elemental magic… With only a rapid, soft bump of their stupid, evermore ugly staff, they gave the others speed and health and a protective aura and all those other necessary idiotic sorceries he himself needed, but couldn't get from him without diving in utter pain too?

 _That_ scumbag worthless bastard, was now – he hated himself so much – necessary to the tale.

"Fenris, WHAT THE F-"

With a drive to forget and get it over with, Fenris grabbed Hawke by the wrist ever more decisively, and dragged her forcefully all the way to Darktown.

"Let go or I kill you!" she cried.

"No," he said flatly.

When they reached Darktown, her mutterings and shouts were growing redundant.

"Fenris I swear-"

"This is just irritating noise to me."

"Why in the name of –"

He hated himself for saying the next words, and the overannoyance flashing out in his tone did not help him feel better about it, "You will thank me later."

When they reached the clinic, he basically kicked her in there, because she was evermore opposing and resistant and utterly screaming and drawing attention.

Anders almost flipped his shit as he turned around and beheld the sight. Neither of the three could really bring themselves to believe the impossible ridiculousness, the sheer  _impossibility_ that described the situation.

Fenris remained cold and firm in his tone and expression, as he pointed at Hawke, "Teach her magic."

Anders lifted his eyebrows and crossed his arms, and seemed about to gasp like the highest-voiced soprano, but he remained contained in his tone and his snorts, "She already knows magic."

"Whatever she knows is not enough," Fenris growled unemotionally and looked at Hawke, who was standing arms crossed and couldn't-care-less expression with half-lidded grumpy eyes. "I can't even begin to count how many times she healed people and blasted thing and almost died."

Anders became more urgent in his tone as he looked at Hawke, "Did you have another strong case of withdrawal?"

Hawke stubbornly refused to answer, which made Fenris look like he was a father dragging his daughter to the mentor with utter disappointment. Well… that wasn't very far from the truth of how that one certain Father handled things whenever he would lose it. There were no more giggles and rainbows, suffice it to say.

"She did," Fenris pressed in irritation. "I alm-  _we_ almost lost her in the city for two days straight, never mind all the other times she made herself be on the brink of sudden death."

"This is not something to play with, Hawke," Anders pleaded, sounding as though he had held this speech to her before. Before and a lot of times and never once heard. "I told you this is going to be the death of you if you don't do anything about it."

Hawke didn't answer. She stubbornly kept her arms crossed and grumpy face as if she were a suspect under unfair interrogation and not even thumbscrews and a visit on the torture rack would break her into saying something. Foolish, foolish pride.

Fenris answered for her, yet again, with utmost annoyance, "She trained now and again, but in Spirit magic, if I am correct." When Hawke didn't protest, he kept his eyes on Anders with a cold gaze. "I wager that is not one of the helpful branches in her case."

Anders snorted and broke into soft chuckles. "They help in combat of course, but not when you're a full-fledged warrior about to fall from exhaustion then come the swooping of magic... They require a lot of magic and," he scratched his head as he tried to be careful with his words, "they can be truly dangerous if not channeled right."

"Then do something about it," Fenris demanded with an edge to his voice.

"I'm sorry," Anders started laughing and lowered his gaze as if not to fall downright on the ground from his sudden paroxysm. "This is just… if Sir Pounce-a-Lot somehow magically appeared on my doorstep all the way from Amaranthine and jumping at my neck, it would  _still_ seem like a simple deed of no importance compared to this miracle of nature that I now behold in front of me." He shook his head and tried not to laugh so much. "The so-called Maker does have a sense of humor doesn't he?"

"Evidently," Fenris articulated in irritation. He shot silent Hawke a quick glance and then his indomitable eyes came back on the mage. "I trust you will resolve this problem."

"You _trust_?" Anders asked in utmost astonishment. He pointed at himself with an open-hanging mouth. "Me? To take care of her?" he pointed at Hawke. "Wow…"

"Enough," Fenris cut him flatly.

"Truly, this has been a day of the most insane wonders. No, this has been the most insane year since I became a Grey Warden," Anders almost shouted in amusement. He put a hand over his heart. "Now all that is missing is sitting down and laughing over tea and cakes with each other instead of at each other. All happy smiles, rainbows and kittens between the angry elf, the impulsive warrior mage and the charming – "

"Don't be ridiculous," Fenris cut him again.

"I know how you feel," Anders laughed softly with his arms still crossed. "Irony is sweet, isn't it?"

"And ignorance is bliss, but I seem to have hit my head and fainted during that one wisest lesson of life," Fenris uttered grumpily. He looked at Hawke again, who kept silent the whole time. "You're welcome."

"That only worked the first time you arrogantly said it," Hawke finally fired back.

"That arrogance seems to be making a special effort today," Fenris retorted flatly and went for the door. He knew she knew, by arrogance he simply meant him. "Goodbye."

Then he was gone.

"Special effort indeed," Anders said calmly, inhaling as to prepare for the worst with Hawke. "What was with that first time thing though?"

"Oh, that's a long story," Hawke said unemotionally, half-lidded eyes. "I'll tell you if you promise not to annoy the crap out of me on the first day."

"You'll outrun all of us before anyone makes a special effort, Hawke," Anders said while sighing heavily.

"Well then, Mighty Wizard McFrostitute, let's see what you can teach me," Hawke said grumpily.

 _A bit of gratitude for all those wounded,_ Anders thought.

 _Just treat her with the same stubbornness not to yield,_ Justice rolled his eyes.

 _How awesomely predictable of you,_ Anders rolled the same eyes.

* * *

**Noon, Outside the Hawke Estate,** _**3 days before Varric's Birthday** _

Anders was only half the time a good company. He was a fair teacher, and a kind-hearted joke sufficed not to make her shout and scream at him that he was a damn annoying moron half the other time. Although to be fair, Hawke had to appreciate the honest effort… because she had never been a star pupil neither in magic nor in swordsmanship. She was quick to size the character of her superior and use his own weapon against him, literally of course, but also figuratively in attitude and speech. She taunted and second-guessed them, and spotted all their mistakes just to point them out and keep her own ground in her weakness. If she ever had to take lessons from Fenris in swordfighting… oh, the rolling eyes and the… well, the cutting them out of their sockets was what the future would dictate.

But she needed the training and she needed the practice, and Anders had more often than not allowed himself to be a guinea pig, which piqued the little sadist in her rather well. All in good time, she could make this work… and maybe she would never go crazy haywires mage ever again.

One great hour of the day as she was coming out of her house and head over to Darktown with all the restraint in her stomach, she bumped right into Varric, who had informed her of the mythical drinking at the everusual Hanged Man for his name day. There was another detail he had let slip though, which made her lose it a bit too quickly.

"You haven't seen him at all?" Hawke shouted at Varric in the courtyard.

Varric quickly flinched and clamped his ears with his hands.

Hawke widened her eyes, pressed her lips and appeared mortified. "I'm sorry!"

"No… apologize to me LOUDER," Varric stung sarcastically.

"Please check on him," Hawke pleaded while lowering her body on the weight of her feet as if she was under the pressure of Nature's Call.

"I saw him once and he kind of very politely threw me out," Varric said with a loud sigh, his shoulders sinking.

"Well press harder, Lionheart!" Hawke almost shouted again in annoyance.

"LOUD," Varric pressed.

"Sorry," Hawke shrugged and pressed her lips.

"I'm sure he's alright. He could simply be thoroughly grasping back at his dance routines. You know, taking a vacation from our last vacation," Varric said while rolling his eyes.

"Or he could be hanging from the ceiling," Hawke said in worry.

"Pft, why me and not you?" Varric protested.

"I'm super busy today," Hawke said with a quickened edge that either said she was deflecting or she was genuinely not looking forward to whatever it was that made her busy that day.

"Oh?" Varric lifted his eyebrows.

Hawke rolled her eyes. "I can't explain now. It's Anders and it's to do with magic."

"Alright…" Varric said unconvinced.

"Please Varric," Hawke pressed with just a hint of puppy-dog eyes and just another hint of I'll-murder-you.

"Alright, alright," Varric said defensively, waving with his hands in a yield. His eyes fell halfway and he curled his lips. "You sound very desperate, by the way."

"Well obviously!" she shouted, then raised and stretched her left arm to directly point in the distance of High Estate District. "If he's dead in there, I live downwind."

"Ewww," Varric scowled sweetly.

"And  _you_ live downwind too," Hawke said with a determined risen eyebrow.

"Hm. Good point," Varric nodded quickly.

* * *

"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies."- Varric

* * *

**5 minutes later, Fenris's Mansion**

There was no need to recognize the obvious. The silence in which he dwelled between those dark familiar walls again was unbearable, but he couldn't bring himself to get out. He felt like a frightened little child crawling into the safest corner of the house, all terrified of the world outside lurking beside the walls, as if one storm could just make them collapse and eat him alive. His head was full, his mind was heavy. He needed time to think.

He kept trying to remember that dream, but only bits and pieces did he seem to recollect. He knew it was something to do with ancient history... something about the end of the world and inevitable doom deemed worthy salvation the last minute. And something about a wolf in shackles breaking free and killing the ruler of the gods... And something about Hawke saying confidently to live.

But his mind was displacing ever so tactfully from thinking about the obvious that all he did for a good part of the day was curse in his mind that he was such a good lad to finally bring some sense to Hawke's situation and force a change upon her for the better. All under the wing of  _that_ mage. Curse him. He was probably enjoying her presence all the more now that he himself dragged her there and offered her on a plate.

… And now he made her sound like an object. Great.

"Elf?" came a patient charming voice which startled him like it always had when it entered uninvited.

"Kaf-, uh, what is the point," Fenris muttered and beckoned for Varric to come into his room and sit on the armchair next to his. "Dwarf."

"You're becoming better at the ghost thing," Varric said with a crooked smile as he sat down. "Might wanna… check that."

"Check my attitude you mean?" Fenris asked, leaning back into the chair.

"Check whatever it is that's holding you in this pit and thus, leaving me with shit tones of money not to spend on well, you," Varric said charmingly and gestured, "I did promise you those thousand drinks."

"Ah… the lonely dwarf comes to the lonely elf because the loner mage decided to go back to her roots," Fenris muttered mockingly. It was his idea, and now he was judging it as if it was dictated by an outside force.

"Magic training is not her  _roots,_ elf," Varric said with narrowed eyes. "And it seems someone is taking issue with that."

"You mean her?" Fenris asked nonchalantly, watching Varric get out his deck of cards.

Varric snorted. "I mean you." Fenris furrowed his brows and crossed his arms. "Oh, I know that posture. I've seen it on a thousand before you. It's the posture of self-denial."

"Really now?" Fenris asked and gestured towards him. "Perhaps you should consider that is the posture of dwarf-denial. As in denying your dwarven presence and welcoming you out."

"Yeah, you did that yesterday, and I was all happy smiles and patient understanding, but not today," Varric said confidently.

"Oh?" Fenris asked, taking his share of the cards. "You checked your attitude?"

"Nope," Varric said sweetly, holding up his own. "My attitude is most constant, serah. It's kind of the reason I always tend to survive the worst of situations."

"Mhm," Fenris muttered unemotionally.

They played a round. The round was won by Fenris.

"This is ridiculous," Varric muttered in annoyance.

Fenris almost grinned as he cut the cards. "My reason is most constant, 'serah'. It is kind of why I always tend to win at your game."

"Let's play a different game," Varric proposed, all-grinning suddenly.

"Always happy to beat you at yet another one," Fenris uttered, leaning back in his chair.

Varric smiled charmingly and leaned back in his chair too. "Alright. It's called  _Questions and Answers._ "

Fenris's shoulders sank and he rolled his eyes as he almost banged the table when he rested his arm on it.

"Now, now, don't be hasty," Varric said with an all-knowing grin. "It's a game, I swear."

"I can't imagine however it may work," Fenris muttered sarcastically, crossing his arms again.

"I ask a question and you don't answer," Varric said.

Fenris raised an eyebrow, playing with one card on the table. "That seems rather contradictory."

"Teh, please," Varric muttered with a cocky grin. "Patience."

"What does this accomplish then?" Fenris demanded, still playing around with that one card.

Varric leaned back forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "I'll guess the answer as I ask the questions. If I don't get it right, you," Varric paused and cupped his chin. "Well I already owe you money, and more so I promised you those thousand drinks so-"

"My, whatever do you call that," Fenris said with a wide smirk. "I think the word for it is ownage, but I'm sure _I_  don't know."

Varric smiled childishly. "Well, let's raise the steaks then, tiger," he said and smirked himself with narrowed eyes. He gestured towards him, "I'll give you a pass to punish me on my name day."

A spark went over his face. "Hm. It would be interesting to see the dwarf getting punished for a change," Fenris said while cupping his chin. A moment later his eyes fell halfway as he nodded. "Very well."

"Alright," Varric said with a smirk and crossed his arms. "Let's see. First things first." He raised his lower lip as if to think, then locked his gaze onto Fenris. "What's the color of your underpants?"

"Excuse me?" Fenris asked in outrage.

Varric beckoned for him to chill. "Nuh-uh, you can't speak, remember?"

"What does-"

"Shush."

Fenris rolled his eyes shortly as if to say fine. He leaned back in his armchair and played with the card on the table.

"Green?" Varric asked. "Hm. So not green." He paused. "I don't suppose it's blue."

Fenris looked at him without blinking. Whatever answer was on his face said he was an idiot.

Varric only grinned and asked again, "How about red?" He clapped his hands. "Bingo."

"How are you so sure?" Fenris asked with narrowed eyes.

"Why how else?" Varric exclaimed while smiling widely. He raised his hands. "You just told me!"

"Oh so you're guessing from my expression, then?" Fenris asked.

"The truth is painted all across your face, Serah," Varric said with a cocky wink. Then he entangled the fingers of his hands in front of his face like a full-fledged boss, only a cigar missing from his regal posture. "Next question… Hm. Why have you locked yourself in these past few days?"

Of course Fenris didn't answer – it was the rule, and he was feeling a bit grateful for the rule. This was no easy guessing of some color, but he did swallow inside and banged the card in his hands more rapidly against the table.

"Is it because you're afraid of something?" Varric asked.

Fenris remained silent and cold-faced.

"So you're afraid of something," Varric said quickly, looking down. "Is it that you'll be running out of saucy red underpants?"

Now he was just making fun of him, Fenris thought.

"Well that's obviously not the case, from your genuine rolling of the eyes," Varric chuckled, then resumed his cocky posture. "Is it the hunters?"

Fenris remained silent and impenetrable, or so he thought.

"So not the hunters," Varric said. Fenris furrowed his brows for a moment, so Varric explained, "You had a faint contained smile for a flash of a second. You tried to conceal it." He leaned back in his chair with a victorious smile. "That means you were happy I thought I was onto you with the obvious and didn't think of something else."

"Are you some kind of dwarven lie detector?" Fenris asked with pronounced discomfort.

Varric chuckled, "I'm a dwarven merchant. I know stuff."

"So because you're a big shot merchant you assume I'm lying?" Fenris asked.

Varric laughed again. "I'm not assuming you're lying because I'm a 'big shot merchant'. I assume you're lying because I'm breathing and you're breathing."

"And yet I did not say anything, thus I am not technically lying," Fenris argued with an all-knowing smirk.

"You don't need to say anything to lie, my friend," Varric sighed. "Keeping the truth inside and shutting up is just as much lying as concealing it with words."

"Did Hawke put you up to this?" Fenris asked angrily.

"Oh, so just because she's the human lie detector, no one else can be perceptive?" Varric chuckled. "I don't do favors like that and even if I did you know Hawke could have just stormed in here and interrogated you much more effectively."

"Oh, joy of joys that she has not, right?" Fenris muttered sarcastically. But it was not sarcasm.

"She's busy," Varric shrugged.

"Oh?" Fenris asked, playing nonchalantly with the card again.

Varric watched him for a moment in silence, but resumed, "She's pulling out the big swords on Kirkwall. Well, that sounds a bit redundant, but you get what I mean."

Fenris shook his head with a risen eyebrow and said, "I really don't."

Varric sighed a bit. "She's petitioned the Viscount to offer social help for an elven prostitute with a kid that wants out of the Blooming Rose."

Fenris remained stunned, his mouth half open. To that Varric chuckled, "Yeah, I know. But she's got a point. She argued that that's the thing a proud independent city should do to show it's not just some smug pretentious sense of independence."

"With the Qunari and the Templars and the crumbling politics of that idiot Viscount she thinks  _now_ is a good time to save poor kittens and puppies?" Fenris asked with discomfort.

"Hey, don't forget you live in the lap of," Varric paused and looked around the room, "what once fairly a thousand years ago had been luxury," he pointed behind him, "because of her."

"I didn't," Fenris said bitterly. "But she didn't go petitioning the Viscount to let me live here. This is different. It's an open assault on his politics."

"So?" Varric asked. "You're living here still because of  _me_  anyway. Sadly, I don't have the same power to do favors for everybody."

Fenris shot him a glance of murder and leaned forward. "I'm sorry. Was it not just a few days ago that I had to pose as Knight-Lieutenant Finufa- _whatever_ because of her insane stupidity?"

"Yeah… that's not gonna happen here," Varric said with an annoyed grimace. "And that was just bad luck, don't put all the blame on her."

Fenris threw his arms in the air suddenly. "We are in the very heart of Templar land. That incident was on a forgotten road in a faraway country. This is Kirkwall and you of all people know what dangers lurk in its midst beyond the free independent city pretenses."

"I know," Varric pressed in annoyance. He shook his head.

"Then stop her!" Fenris almost shouted.

"Sure, want me to spew diamonds out of my ass while I'm at it?" Varric uttered sarcastically.

Fenris shook his head at him. "You give us this beautiful illusion every day that you keep your fingers in all the pots and thus, you are all-powerful, but you can't spew those crazy diamonds?"

"Well the only way I can keep those diamonds from delving into everything is by turning them to the Templars," Varric said angrily. "And it turns out neither of us wants that now, do we?"

Fenris pressed his lips in annoyance and remained silent. He leaned back into the armchair and resumed playing around with the card on the table and muttered bitterly, "Stubborn diamonds."

"Those stubborn diamonds, all of us, have done enough for everyone to be grateful for," Varric muttered. "The dwarven diamond keeps all the thieves and tax collectors away from this place. The red diamond already battled the Senechal into raising the fences against slaver activity and all-things Tevinter. Guard-Captain Diamond keeps a daily watch over their nests and wipes the city clean of them. Even Ship-Captain Diamond got you a deal by juggling some rubies, if you know what I mean."

"Sadly," Fenris muttered grumpily. "But that was not for my sake. Ship-Captain Diamond did it to get herself rights over some shipments in the Docks."

"Yeah, I don't get what she's doing with that either," Varric said while narrowing his eyes. "But anyway-"

"If you're trying to make me feel guilty, you can show yourself out," Fenris cut him with an angry look.

"I'm not, you roaring idiot!" Varric exclaimed with palms raised. "But I think you're not the only one who deserves rights, freedom, protection and yadda-yadda. That's all I'm saying."

"Clearly," Fenris muttered in annoyance. He kept playing with the card and remained silent.

"So, back to our game," Varric said with a smile. "Not hunters. Then what in the world could it be… should I dare go straight for the belt?"

Fenris didn't answer, remaining grim in his card spinning.

"Something to do with the stubborn diamond?" Varric asked. Fenris almost crushed the card. "So that's it." A moment passed. "But not with this piece of news. This is something older."

Since Fenris still didn't throw him out, he decided to go deeper. "Something happened." Varric leaned back in the chair and rested his head against his arm. "In Antiva?" He searched his expression. "After Antiva?" Another moment passed. "Before?"

Fenris played with the card without looking at him. Varric was going to blast his brains out with this, but then again, he wouldn't let it go either way.

"Wow, you're not sure yourself," Varric said with his eyebrow lifted. "Your expressions are a bunch of half-assed oatmeal."

"Astonish me with your wisdom," Fenris muttered sarcastically.

"Well," Varric said with a grin. "When I said before Antiva, you concealed a smile again. When I said after Antiva, you clenched your fist on the chair."

Fenris looked at him nervously, clutching to the card now as if it was the only point of balance.

Then Varric's face became grim suddenly, locking his gaze onto the elf. "But when I said in Antiva, your eyebrows went oblique for a moment. That was sadness."

Fenris furrowed his eyebrows at him and asked, "Sadness? Why sadness?"

"You ask me?" Varric said with a smile. "I don't know what happened now, do I?"

"I almost don't believe you," Fenris articulated disdainfully. "More so I imagine you already painted a picture," he rolled his eyes, "all with studying my eyebrows."

"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," Varric said with a grin. Then he arched up an eyebrow and asked, "How come you're not kicking me out, elf?"

"I need a drink," Fenris said bitterly and went for the cellar. While he was gone, Varric leaned over to look at the card he was playing with. If he didn't kick him out yet, then he couldn't help but guess Fenris needed to get something out of him and he was the one he chose in a snap decision to confide in. Perhaps because his guessing game aroused an interest in him and kept him entertained all with his defenses.

When he came back, he poured cider in their glasses and fell back in the armchair forcefully.

"Cider?" Varric asked with a grin. "I almost forgot about that."

"What?" Fenris asked nonchalantly as he took a sip.

"All in good time," Varric said with half-lidded eyes. "So back to our game."

"Make haste with that," Fenris muttered, resting his head against his arm. "Cider puts me to sleep rather quickly."

"The host knows best," Varric said subtly. "So you smiled before Antiva, you were angry after Antiva, you were sad because of Antiva."

"Mhm," Fenris muttered while drinking. He forgot he didn't need to answer.

"Well, since I'm much more acquainted with anger than you showing any  _other_  normal emotions," Varric started with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "Is the anger towards her?" Moments passed. "So not her."

Fenris kept drinking nonchalantly, hoping he would pass out.

"Towards someone not present?" Varric demanded. "Hm. You're not sure." He cupped his chin and scrutinized him. "Is it Blondie?"

Fenris banged the glass back on the table without realizing. "Now what sort of special scorn could you have towards Blondie?" Varric asked a bit eager now, all-knowingly grinning.

"I don't have anything 'special' towards an all the more insignificant being like that mage," Fenris answered flatly.

"That mage, huh?" Varric asked while smirking.

"He is a mage, is he not?" Fenris asked redundantly. "You call him Blondie, I call him mage."

"You also call him abomination and Winifred McWhinehard, but that's not the word I was articulating," Varric said. "Speaking of articulation, you said 'that mage' instead of using a simple pronoun while were already aware of who were speaking about. That's distancing language."

"Do I look like I want to be close to 'him'?" Fenris mocked with using a simple pronoun now.

"Nope," Varric said sweetly. "But you articulated it more harshly this time. That means while you're distancing yourself as usual from 'him', you're also hiding something about 'him' that I don't know." Fenris frowned at him, so Varric raised a palm towards him. "Am I wrong, Braveheart?"

"Astonish me some more with your theories," Fenris muttered and took another sip of nonchalance. "I shall keep drinking in the meantime."

"You want me to guess so you won't have to say anything," Varric said. He grinned and shrugged while uttering, "Which is why I chose to play it this way myself." He stretched his arms all lion-hearted. "See how sweet and tactful and understanding I am?"

"Yes, I see you're tactful," Fenris said flatly, placing the glass on the table.

"You're annoyed with him training the stubborn diamond," Varric said.

Fenris laughed shortly. "That is not some state secret."

"Exactly," Varric grinned. "You're hiding something."

"Perhaps it is annoyance towards a figure present at this very table," Fenris muttered grumpily, shooting a cold glance.

"Yeah, you," Varric said flatly. "You're angry at yourself."

"Me?" Fenris asked in outrage.

"Oh, please," Varric shouted and leaned back in his chair. He took a long sip of the cider to harrow Fenris with the waiting. Then he resumed with a serious face, "I'm not an idiot."

"No, you're clearly much brighter than you look it," Fenris said half-sarcastically.

Varric rolled his eyes and took another great sip of harrowing. "I know two things for certain – one of them is that you're angry at yourself. Two is that one indeed needs the power to spew diamonds out of their ass and pigs would be flying up above in the sky the same day Priscilla Tuffpants decides to do something she had stubbornly refused to for years and years on end." He leaned over and shot him a straight, accusatory glance. "So forgive me if I think this wasn't voluntary."

"I'm clearly a miracle worker," Fenris answered bitterly, taking the bottle to drink straight out from it.

"And I'm clearly brighter than I look it," Varric stated confidently, crossing his arms. "So what's your problem? Why are you angry with yourself?"

"Shouldn't you be the one guessing, Mister Lie Detector?" Fenris asked nonchalantly, drinking from the bottle.

"You're right, I'm clearly the smartass here," Varric said in annoyance. "But I can't quite imagine why you would be." He gestured while enumerating, "You get to stop rambling that she's endangering herself, she gets to make peace with her stupid magic and last but not least, you get to dance for joy and laugh your ass off because Hawke's clearly gonna bring Blondie close to blasting his own brains out with a fireball."

Instead of laughing, Fenris banged the bottle against the table and shouted, "He is dangerous."

"And the sky is blue and the grass is green," Varric said sarcastically, narrowing his eyes at his outburst.

Fenris looked away and pressed his lips. He inhaled deeply and scratched the label off the bottle. After a while he muttered, "I don't trust him."

"Again, the sky is bl-"

"This is not funny," Fenris said angrily. He kept scratching the label off and inhaled deeply again in utter annoyance. "That… Zevran guy, he said he was a big flaming scoundrel in the Wardens. Now he's also possessed by a vengeful spirit."

Varric arched up an eyebrow and asked, "And what does that have to do with teaching Hawke a few damn spells?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Fenris almost shouted angrily. He leaned back in the chair and gestured as he muttered, "Or do you need to go study that guy's eyebrows too to get an idea?"

Varric chuckled. "Of course I'll do that too." He nodded friendly. "You can count on me."

"Marvelous," Fenris muttered grumpily and grabbed the bottle aggressively to drink again.

"So this was your idea and that's why you're angry with yourself," Varric guessed quickly, scrutinizing his change in behavior. "Great then. We're getting somewhere."

"How about out?" Fenris hissed bitterly, swallowing the cider.

Varric narrowed his eyes and said, "How about no?"

"How about yes, before I make you?" Fenris said with a contained edge to his voice.

Varric shook his head and looked down. Several moments of silence enveloped them both, Fenris glancing at him angrily and waiting for him to leave. When Varric looked back up at him, Fenris felt a bit nervous, because his face seemed both serious and sad.

"Here's how I see it," Varric said decisively with half-lidded eyes, staring at Fenris as he gestured, "Good friends pretend everything's okay and keep on a goodie-goodie smile. Great friends go past the caverns of bullshit and dig until they find those diamonds of truth."

Fenris laughed hoarsely. "So now I am to understand that we're  _great_  friends?"

Varric pressed, ignoring him, "Good friends also nod and understand." Then he shot him the most serious and confident glance in history. "And great friends don't take no for an answer."

"Are you done?" Fenris asked nonchalantly.

"Yeah, I'm done," Varric said bitterly.

Fenris gestured towards him calmly, "Then resume your game."

"… Alright," Varric said all with lifted eyebrows. He coughed awkwardly and resumed, "So the anger issue is resolved. How about that sadness issue? The happy issue seems to me to be the most fantastically strange and utterly hard one, so I'll keep it last."

"Whatever," Fenris muttered nonchalantly and rested his forehead against his arm on the table as he drank away.

Varric pressed his lips in annoyance and searched his mind. "You're words say nonchalance, but your voice says it bothers you a lot. And your expression says you feel guilty, all with the hand on the forehead thingy."

"Oh, so we're past the eyebrow studying," Fenris said mockingly.

Varric knew this was something grave and he didn't know exactly how to do it without tackling him with the truth. "Well… seeing as how you're confiding in me instead of your best friend in the world, I guess it has something to do with the stubborn diamond." Fenris shot him a cold glance. "…And that concealed scorn towards my little guess for a flash of a second confirmed it."

"You've got scorn right," Fenris muttered.

"So the stubborn diamond made you sad?" Varric said and thought on it for a moment. "Did someone dig into the mine too deep?"

"You're the one digging too deep," Fenris said with an edge to his tone, brushing his arm in annoyance.

"And that quick brush on the arm says I'm hitting gold soon," Varric said all-grinning.

"Now I can't even touch myself?" Fenris asked angrily.

Varric snorted. "Oh, you can touch yourself all you want, my friend."

Fenris blushed and suddenly looked away. "Resume your game and shut up."

"Well now that's kind of contradictory," Varric chuckled. "Alright where were we?"

"You were hitting on something," Fenris reminded him nonchalantly.

"Right…" Varric said. "Did someone else hit on something they shouldn't have? Perhaps the burned relics in the hidden mine of someone's sanctum of – OH THIS IS RIDICULOUS," Varric shouted and sighed. He shot Fenris a serious glance. "I know you're shacking up with Hawke."

Fenris choked on his cider and splashed it all out. "I am  _not_!"

"Then what's with the only-one-shoulder shrug, Cider Boy?" Varric asked while narrowing his eyes. "That one-shoulder shrug means you have no confidence in what you just said. Either that or you have no confidence in what shacking up means, so I guess it's safe to say we shouldn't check the sky for flying pigs any time soon."

Fenris banged the bottle on the table as he placed it down. "Enough."

"What the hell happened, elf?" Varric pressed with narrowed eyes.

"Nothing," Fenris growled angrily.

"Well, _that_ 's true," Varric said. "Now we're getting somewhere. That made you sad then? Certainly wouldn't make  _me_ dance for joy."

"You don't know anything," Fenris said angrily.

"But I would like to, highness," Varric almost shouted, losing his nerves. "I don't appreciate this hiding around."

"Well that's ironic, isn't it?" Fenris almost shouted too, gesturing towards his crossbow. "You finally get a taste of your own medicine."

"That's different, Cider Boy," Varric said in annoyance. "Did you pinky-swear not to tell or something?"

"Did I what?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"Ugh, never mind," Varric said while rolling his eyes. "Just tell me."

"Oh, I get it," Fenris said in a fit of masked calmness and rose from his chair. "You get to play the little puppy-loving dwarf to the angry private elf and thought you could get it out of me in my sudden fit of misery instead of going all accusations on your 'best friend'."

"Yep, you caught me," Varric said in-between pressing his lips. "You don't go whining to your best friend because it's about her. I don't go whining to the same friend because I'm a little bitch. You caught me."

"Don't mock me," Fenris growled with narrowed eyes.

"I'm not," Varric pressed in annoyance, looking up at him unyieldingly. "Though to be fair, she's way tougher to break than you."

Fenris raised his arm halfway and growled, "Get out."

Varric crossed his arms and shot him a very annoyed look in silence.

"I mean it, Varric," Fenris pressed with his arm still pointing at the door.

" _Fenris,_ I know you have the courage to get past your fear and tell me the truth," Varric pressed too. "That's why you chose me to confide in – an ally who will understand, an adviser you can trust," he paused and pressed his lips, "or maybe a friend who will never judge."

Fenris remained silent and seemed as though he was battling between sitting down again or staying on his ground of misery. Varric was already onto him, and his faint contained expressions of sadness were already flooding the dark and empty room. Fenris finally swallowed inside and looked away. "There is nothing to tell," he growled coldly.

"Can I give you a piece of advice then?" Varric asked undauntedly.

Fenris remained cold and shook his head faintly. "It seems everyone keeps giving me pieces of advice."

"Clearly this must be a conspiracy," Varric mused all-grinning.

"Clearly," Fenris articulated with narrowed eyes.

Varric brushed his forehead in annoyance. "Or maybe it's a damn sign you should listen."

"And what is yours, I wonder?" Fenris asked.

"Get out of this house," Varric almost shouted, raising his palms to make it seem more evident. "You can't keep playing around with that card and holding onto its meaning like it's some lost memory and some idealistic bullshit of honor," he said and gestured towards the Knight of Roses card he kept nervously playing with. "There's enough time to mope and brood when you go to bed. Don't waste it, you're getting old."

Fenris snorted suddenly and crossed his arms. "Now I'm old?"

"You've done a great deal of growing up over the years," Varric said confidently and crossed his arms too. "So quit your shit and be a man."

"I'm not a man?" Fenris asked, lifting his eyebrows.

Varric pressed his lips. "You really want me to answer that?"

"Better that you don't," Fenris said with a sigh. "Perhaps I have been a bit unreasonable."

"A bit," Varric snorted.

"Don't push it, dwarf," Fenris pressed with a cold glance.

Varric sighed again. "Like I said… you're getting old. I don't care that you elves look all young and plucky, you're not so young anymore."

"However might you know?" Fenris asked sarcastically.

"I know everything there is to know," Varric pressed with a wink, deliberate on the redundancy. "Remember that day when Hawke disappeared?"

"Which time…?" Fenris asked with a sigh.

"The first time. When you found her in the old estate," Varric said. "And I came after you and we played cards for the first time."

"Ah yes, when my unbeatable winning streak and your years of misery began," Fenris said cockily.

"You got the misery part right," Varric said mockingly. "Anyway, I told you that you needed some growing up to do… and you said I should tell you stuff anyway and you'll save it as a memento for when the right time came to use it."

"And?" Fenris asked.

"Well use my damn advice already," Varric pressed with stretched arms. "You don't yet show it, but you're starting to fade and I can sense it before it's even happening."

"Yes, you're quite the clairvoyant, aren't you?" Fenris muttered sarcastically.

"Nope," Varric said sweetly and got up from the chair. "I'm an expert in the mind."

"You are not an expert in the mind of a slave," Fenris said bitterly, going back for the bottle on the table.

Varric went for the door and opened it halfway. He clutched at it for a second, then he looked behind and shrugged as he said, "I shouldn't be. I'm not talking to one."

* * *

**Noon, Fenris's Mansion,** _**2 days before Varric's Birthday** _

"Yes?" Fenris asked coldly as he opened his door to her.

Hawke tried not to look unsettled by his sudden disappearance, so she simply said, "Are you… alright? Haven't heard from you these days."

His expression remained soulless and impenetrable, sizing her up. He gave her an empty glance. "I'm fit as a fiddle."

Hawke couldn't do much but grimace at his choice of words, then after too many seconds of silence he harrowed on her, she finally uttered, "Alright, well… You seem to be content. Forgive me for disturbing."

"No need to apologize," Fenris nodded knightly, but remained cold. "Goodbye."

Perhaps the whole black figures and the dream he had which bore the memories of his past horrors struck him a bit too hard, all with his tormented mind already receiving too many shocks the past month. Perhaps he needed some time. Perhaps he was pulling away.

All she knew was that she couldn't let it go, but she wouldn't press either. She turned around and made haste to walk back to her house, but something gnawed at her lips and she couldn't help it. Before his door went shut, she turned back and sought to maybe distract him with another more insane reality.

"Alright, I've been having dreams about us," Hawke almost shouted as she walked back to him.

"Dreams?" Fenris asked while stopping the door, a bit thrown off. He looked down and up at her with a piercing look, though kept his contained tone, "What kind of dreams?"

Hawke's lids fell halfway. "Dreams. Regular dreams. Lots of daylight, lots of armour."

"I see," Fenris said. "… And?"

"And I don't know, I want you to invite me in," Hawke demanded. "If that's alright with you."

"Are you a vampire?" Fenris asked grumpily. "Seems only fair that you always come up to me at night."

"Yes, I am so much a vampire, fully annoyed of the  _daylight_ in those dreams," Hawke said sarcastically. It was also daylight outside right then, so he couldn't play with it.

"Well, how could I leave you out here to  _burn_?" Fenris stung back subtly.

Alright, he did find a way to play with it. Well now, perhaps there was still a flame in his soul that kept the old funny Fenris with a particular emotion he scarcely, but frequently showed her.

"So I can come in?" Hawke asked with a childish smile.

He remained silent for a minute, looking almost past through her with his piercing green eyes. As if to ask or search something in his logic. It seemed he was battling between letting her in and utterly shutting the door.

He then slowly, and to her relief, moved away from the doorway as he dragged the door wide open. He gestured politely inside, "I humbly welcome you into my home," Fenris nodded grumpily, and gestured gentlemanly. "For the first time in all these years."

Hawke rolled her eyes, resumed with a smile thereafter, "You never were humble in welcoming me, 'tis true."

"I do wonder why vampires would have to be granted invitation to come in someone's home," Fenris said calmly.

She came into his hallway and walked right past him, "Well, otherwise it would just be rude."

His eyes fell heavily at the back of his head, accompanied by a not so contained smile as she couldn't really see him as he closed the door.

She stopped into the center of the hallway and turned around to look at him.

"So these dreams you were saying about?" Fenris asked coldly, stopping at the polite distance.

"I… uhm…" Hawke stuttered horribly, clutching at her hair as she swayed like a frightened child.

"You… uh?" Fenris asked nonchalantly, crossing his arms.

She sighed heavily and bit at her lip. Then she quickly jerked her head and rolled her eyes as she said, "I had the same dream… with the self-driving gondola and the self-replenishing glass of wine."

Never had his brows furrowed more urgently. He appeared to swallow inside, then tilted his head and drawled, "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," Hawke shrugged and pressed her lips. "We talked about Fenrir and I painted you. Then you brushed off the name and scribbled your own." She inhaled and locked her gaze onto him even if he shyly looked away. "And then you toasted towards me saying you are to enjoy the irony."

Fenris remained silent with his arms crossed, and beyond the aloofness burned a terrible contradiction in his eyes.

"It's insane, I know," Hawke stuttered quickly and looked down. "This Fade thing is –"

"This is most disturbing," Fenris uttered coldly, uncrossing his arms.

"I agree," Hawke nodded calmly and started pacing around as she gestured and explained, "The Fade bears the fullness of emotion from our world. It dictates its existence and its surroundings. They are all made out of it." He watched her patiently as she explained, so she swallowed inside and continued, "Mages are usually conscious in it, and therefore almost all dreams are arguably less incomprehensible."

Fenris remained silent, and his eyes told her to continue to explain this to him.

Hawke clutched at her hair nervously and continued drawling, "And some mages can…" she gestured slowly, "catch the subtle vibes of these emotions and live…"

"So we talked in a dream, as if it were another Tuesday," Fenris cut her with his incomplete conclusion.

Hawke scratched her head and grimaced with discomfort, "Pretty much."

"I see," Fenris said calmly, eyes lowering to the ground. "Were you aware that you were dreaming?"

"For a moment," Hawke stated nervously, looking away. "I tend to lose myself in these things."

"Perhaps with more practice you could master this talent," Fenris said calmly, a statement that quickly threw her off.

Hawke narrowed her eyes and jerked her head. "I don't really… take interest in this – "

Fenris finally he gave her a soft chuckle with half-lidded eyes as he crossed his arms, and then said, "How did the  _training_ go, might I ask?"

"It sucked," Hawke said flatly.

Fenris raised an eyebrow and a ghost of a grin came about his face, which died as quickly, "Can you… be more specific?"

Hawke shrugged, "It really sucked."

"How sad," Fenris said calmly.

"You know you brought me there,  _by force,_ might I add," Hawke said accusatorily, "So it's a bit of a contradiction that you threw me into it, but then you kinda also enjoy that Anders is a pain in my ass."

"On the contrary," Fenris retorted calmly, and gestured nonchalantly towards her, "I enjoy you being a pain in  _his_."

"Oh, so this is like a punishment," Hawke said with a silvery grin. "I caught your drift. No need to say more."

"No," Fenris pressed. Then an edge of emotion started to trace in his tone, "I was very serious when I dragged you in there." He gestured towards her decisively. "You need to take care of your problem."

"That reminds me you have not given your punishment to me and it's already been a year," Hawke said to deflect, cupping her chin and grinning. "Whatever happened to that?"

"I'm a patient man," Fenris said with a contained grin. "Let us hope the abomination is too."

"He's close to strangling me," Hawke said with a shrug. "And I'm close to letting him."

"Don't joke," Fenris pressed in annoyance.

"I'm serious," Hawke shouted innocently. "Never before have I felt like drinking as much."

"Stop with the drinking," Fenris said flatly.

"Now there's a lot you want to change about me in such a short time," Hawke said in annoyance. "Good to see you've taken up another purpose in life."

"It's not funny," Fenris pressed bitterly, still arms crossed and tense.

She crossed her arms too. "No, but it's ironic."

"Why?" he asked.

"It would be even more ironic if I had to spell it out for you," Hawke said and smiled sadly. "Oh, but you did say you were to enjoy the irony now, didn't you?"

Fenris shook his head and closed his eyes. He seemed to have too much on his mind. He cut her short, "Just keep with your training and stay our of trouble."

"Ah, fine, Father dearest," Hawke said and rolled her eyes. "If you so wish."

"If you do it just on behalf of my wishes, then…," Fenris started bitterly, but paused all of a sudden while looking down.

"Then?" she asked.

He coughed chivalrously and resumed his gaze upon her coldly. "I suppose I can live with that," he said firmly, then a quick grimace came over his lips, "however foolish it may be."

She couldn't help but a smile a little, and approached him without realizing. He stepped back, without realizing.

"I…" Hawke stuttered sadly, without much in her repertoire of saving lines for this kind of awkward, tensioned and cold conversations. "Are you alright? You don't seem alright."

"I'm… fine," Fenris muttered with a bit of hidden emotion, and with that he let himself sigh. "I simply needed to be alone for a time."

"Do you still need to?" Hawke pressed, but in a soft voice. She shrugged and smiled, "I'm not shouting for attention, I just want to know if you need me."

"I don't," Fenris said quickly, but then his throat stiffened and his eyes seemed to widen and he started to stumble, look in different directions and drawl as he muttered in a deep voice, "I mean…" he sighed and put a hand over his forehead. "I do. But I –"

"You're not in a good place," Hawke finished it for him. She nodded knightly and said in a soft voice, "Look, shout if you need me. I'm not going to press on something when you obviously don't have the heart to speak of it." She shrugged and her smile died. "You've known me for enough years to understand I'm here, I've known you enough time to learn not to step over boundaries."

He kept silent a moment, then his tongue let slip a soft and low, "Thank you."

Hawke smiled warmly and said, "I also thought I'd bring you a basket of scones, but –"

"You thought a burned up desert wouldn't look much like a friendly offering but an invitation for war," Fenris finished her sentence with a ghost of a smirk.

"How well you know me," Hawke said with a silvery grin. "But expect a good basket soon, Mother's been asking for you and I didn't know what to tell her."

"Is that the only reason you were here then?" Fenris asked while crossing his arms.

"Yeah, of course," Hawke said while rolling her eyes. "I always go on errand duty for all-loving Mother dearest and bring messages to her most beloved elf."

"I wouldn't go that far," Fenris said with a contained smile.

"Oh, cut it," Hawke said sharply. "You know she's crazy about  _you_  and all-disapproving of  _me_ ," she said with narrowed eyes and pointed at him, "and you're loving every bit of it."

"She's your mother," Fenris said calmly and shrugged, "What good would it do her to worry over strangers more than her own daughter?"

"Yeah, you really don't know my mother," Hawke said with a sigh. "There's no ant or puppy or," she coughed, "warrior in the world she doesn't go hot-headed superhero for."

"I think I know the type," Fenris said with arms crossed, containing his smile.

Hawke didn't get it, so she just jerked her head and pressed her lips. "Well… I gave you your warning," she said while shrugging, "If you don't want her to storm the doors and harrow hell upon you…"

"I wouldn't want that now, would I?" Fenris said a bit bitterly, uncrossing his arms. "I apologize, Hawke."

"For what?" she asked in confusion, narrowing her eyes.

His throat seemed to stiffen, and he coughed shortly. "Never mind. Pay me no heed."

"Alright," Hawke said and smiled shortly. "I will leave you be."

"Haw-" Fenris stuttered and lowered his gaze. He cleared his throat and said, "Be careful."

"I learned my lessons," Hawke said and pressed her lips. She turned around and started to walk. "Take care, Fenris."

"Take care," he said faintly and watched her go. For some reason she stopped and turned around with a pointy finger.

"I do however," Hawke started and sighed, then approached him again, "Need you tomorrow to discuss Varric's name day. Remember you said we needed to blast his brains out this year since he's bored of enough times over the years?"

"Yes, drinking for two hours, half-snorting and making inside jokes with himself, then he suddenly disappears," Fenris said while rolling his eyes. "I can't have that again. I will be the one to blast my brains out if this will be so."

"Then it's settled," Hawke said with a smile. "Come by my house tomorrow."

"I will see you then," Fenris said a bit melodically in his gentlemanly tone.

When she walked past him, he made way for her as if she were a ghost, and despite her being a ghost, he beheld her as more powerful and likely to wound him. She resolved to banish this bitter thought in her mind and walk forward unperturbed.

Little did she know, Fenris kept his eyes on her as she slowly made her way out of his mansion, viciously cursing himself in his mind, that he simply didn't tell her to stay, even for a lousy glass of wine.

* * *

**Evening, Hawke's Estate,** _**1 day before Varric's Birthday** _

"Why don't we make a progressive dinner for Varric?" Leandra proposed firmly. "It was an old tradition," she gestured in explaining to Fenris, "Each household made a meal course and the guests would travel from house to house as they did."

"Oh no, no, no," Hawke protested immediately.

"We can have the main course here," Leandra gestured back into the house, since they were in the courtyard, "And Fenris could have us over for dessert. Then you can all resume your rampant celebrations with drinking at your filthy old tavern."

Hawke snorted heavily. "Fenris? Dessert?"

"I think that's an excellent idea," came Fenris's voice and threw her off completely.

"You do?!" Hawke almost shouted, eyes widened towards him, mouth half-open and powerfully dumb-looking.

Fenris rapidly coughed awkwardly. "Although given the state of my mansion and a one day's notice, I would much rather bring it here."

"Well, it would still be a progressive dinner," Leandra said while cupping her chin. "Very well then."

"Andraste's purple bruised buttcheeks, what the hell is going on here?" Hawke shouted and stretched her arms out. "Have I suddenly died and landed in the country of fairies and unicorns, where Fenris makes dessert and my Mother holds dinner parties for  _my_ friends?"

"You were not the only one who taught me something useful," Fenris pressed firmly, looking at her coldly with the back of his eye.

Leandra chuckled with her arms crossed. "You should taste his scones, they're very good."

"I should  _what_?" Hawke asked rapidly, understanding something else entirely.

"It took him about five burned batches and one contained Tevinter curse before he got it alright," Leandra said warmly.

"I apologize for that," Fenris said politely.

Leandra chuckled and gestured as she said, "That's alright, I cursed more and less contained than you did."

"I… what… the hell… ," Hawke uttered while looking astonished, from her mother back to Fenris and then again at her mother.

"Come on dear, you can handle all the liquor," Leandra said sweetly, which only made the edge in her voice more obvious. "And the napkins."

"Great… napkin duty," Hawke muttered. "Hooray."

"Did I mention the liquor?" Leandra asked innocently with a smile, again only a bit of an edge in her voice.

So she was to handle the alcohol… and Fenris did not say one thing about it? And more importantly, Fenris was about to make desert for five-six people? Truly this day could not be more insane.

"Fine, I'm in," Hawke muttered with her arms crossed.

"I'll make braised lamb shanks and Duck a l'Orange with cherry-rosemary sauce," Leandra said eagerly, entangling her hands.

A second of silence and one eyebrow arching up to Heaven. "I'm still in," Hawke drawled awkwardly.

"What about sprouts?" Leandra asked and looked at Fenris. "How do you enjoy your sprouts?"

"As… projectiles?" Hawke answered for him, with an eyebrow arching up to Heaven.

"Whatever you will cook will be just fine, I'm certain," Fenris answered politely.

Hawke put her hands against her head and shook it slowly. "What is happening with you?"

Fenris looked at her as if she were an idiot, then resumed his glance onto her mother. "Should I attempt to make scones or pie?"

"What in Maker's good name is happening with you!" Hawke cried again astonished.

They both ignored her.

"I'm thinking pie, but that's just me," Leandra said with a shrug.

Fenris suddenly turned his head to Hawke and calmly asked, "What is your feeling on pie?"

"My feeling is that I want to be locked in room made out of pie and eat my way out of it," Hawke said while picturing it.

Fenris chuckled and shot her an evil grin. "Then you'll be growing out of your battle pants in no time"

"Oh, joy…," Hawke muttered and crossed her arms. "Good thing I took up Booty Burning Ballet."

Silence and arching eyebrows on her. "What, can't I joke?" she asked in annoyance. "Oh, you two are wussies."

They both ignored her yet again.

"If you do have the courage to venture into pie duty, I wager I should give you a hand," Leandra said while chuckling warmly.

Fenris gave her Mother a contained smile, shyly looking away. Was he really that much of a gentleman or was he playing with her being all cold and nonchalant? What a snake, if that were true. Shame on him.

"I will welcome your help, but I'm quite confident I can do it myself," Fenris said firmly, nodding towards Leandra.

"Alright then," Leandra laughed and touched him only for a second on the shoulder. "I'm looking forward to it. Feel free to come before the dinner and I'll help you if you need me. And don't tell Varric. Let it be a surprise."

Oh, no need to worry over surprises…

"As am I for dinner," Fenris said and bowed to her. "Have a good night."

Then he turned to the arching-eyebrow grimacing Hawke and nodded, "Hawke."

Shame on him!

* * *

**5 minutes later, Evening, Hawke Estate**

She was sitting at the table with her mother, Leandra courteous and soft and Hawke with a leg over the arm of the chair. She blew a few circles in the air.

"I hope you're not smoking in front of him," Leandra said in worry.

Hawke blew a few circles nonchalantly again, then assumed a grumpy face. "Yeah, I lie in bed and puff in his face, Mother," she said in irritation.

Her Mother raised her eyebrows quickly. "Bed?"

"I did all sorts of unladylike things with him already," Hawke teased devilishly.

"Oh, Maker," Leandra gasped and put a hand over her forehead.

"Yeah, that's what I usually scream too," Hawke lied and tried not to laugh.

"OH by the Void, stop it!" Leandra shouted in anger.

Hawke pressed her lower lip upwards and looked up with a slight head tilt. "That too, sometimes. He can come a bit too hard, but you know how that is."

"Shut your dirty mouth!" Leandra shouted again.

Hawke laughed. "Now you're just quoting right from the book if one kept a record of our pillow talk."

Leandra scowled a few too many seconds before she realized Hawke was playing with her. "You're doing this on purpose so I won't mother him so much and make you look like you're a lonely little vagabond."

"Oh, it took you a year and a half to realize! Welcome to my world, dear Mother!" she shouted eagerly with hands up in the air and almost falling back from her chair. "Everyone else is always better than me in your eyes."

"You know they're not, love," Leandra pressed suavely, sad eyes on her face. "I just like to mother people, you know that."

"Well, I apparently, by your standards, like to insult people, so I guess we're both at an edge here," Hawke said grumpily.

Leandra shook her head and grinned. "Perhaps that is why I hear a sparkle in your voice as you sought to unsettle me with your dirty mutterings." She raised an a proud eyebrow. "You wish they would not be imaginary."

Damn it. Right below the belt and almost literally. Her Mother didn't let her have much time to forget where she got half her brains from.

She gulped and gestured dismissively, "Now look who's being perverted." She grinned. "I must almost come to wonder if you're not the one who is secretly in love."

Leandra snorted and broke into laughter. And she laughed, and laughed, and laughed … a bit too much. Hawke was rolling her eyes.

Alright, maybe that was a bit weak. She was getting rusty… And she practically said she was in love.

Tomorrow was going to be a long night…

 


	43. When Hawke Couldn't Let It Go

Fenris couldn't sleep. Perhaps it was because he was a fool, perhaps it was because he was plagued by nightmares… perhaps the night just didn't want him dozing off. He tried reading something boring… _The Maker's Children_ , but it didn't work –he became fascinated and needed to know more about the Fade in light of recent events. Immersed into the book, he probably stood there for a good few hours, and not because he had trouble reading anymore. He developed the steady automatism to read words in their wholeness rather than breaking them into letters.

What had this been to him? Nothing. And as he burned the candle again and let the light grow bright around his eternally silent figure, and as he gazed at his reflection in his sword for a second, he knew the same penance he had always known.

But as he stood there, as he dreamt with his eyes open, one clear conclusion did come to him. He wanted hope precisely because he had put himself into the open world and there was almost no turning back from it. He had spent a good amount of time in this mansion and in this city, that he suspected if he took off again, it would have grown out of his character to be eternally vigilant and he would be dead within the hour. Had he never stepped into the Alienage, this mad loneliness would not have come over him. It was mixed up with his hopes and fears, but most particularly with a certain feeling which he could only call true friendship, and his desire to be close to those that helped him and prevented his death so many times over.

Only on the beginning of this night did he realize that she was really a flight risk from his friendship. Up until then, he had thought that such was absolutely inconceivable. He couldn't lose her. No, such a thing could not happen. At last, he was eaten by the thought to beg her to sit down and listen to him as he would pour out his honest heart, telling her about everything there needed to be said, confessing every bad thing which he had done or said, every cheap denial of her which had come from his lips, every desperate foolish thing he'd said to Hawke.

Then distant recollections and figures from the past started to flash before his eyes, faces and words he never wanted to remember again, memories of his own unforgivable betrayal, memories when yet again, death and running dictated his path and his tale. No, some things one would not want to remember. He cursed a little, that he knew how to keep a calendar now. When that one day was coming… he would not remember it. This year was different, and he couldn't feel more haunted and miserable over it. But his chain of thoughts were saved from burning up by a ridiculous sound.

There were footsteps on the roof, perhaps unknowingly going straight for the hole in the ceiling he had worked on covering up during the faintly rainier season.

But he could recognize those steps… no one could have made a loader sound without effort. Hawke was not a tiptoe kind of girl… she was the kind that stepped with the whole might of their heels and even she tried, she couldn't be quiet with her battle boots on.

A loud bang, another one, and then the ceiling cover broke and Hawke fell with full force on the ground.

"What are you doing?" came Fenris's unhappy voice as he came up from the chair.

Even in the shuddering gloom, she could see his handsome straight nose and beautifully shaped full lips. As for the green eyes, they gave the face a certain frightening aspect, though she wasn't certain whether or not she ought to have felt such a thing. She resolved to ignore all of this.

Thus Hawke got up in an instant, rubbing her back from the pain and griming her clothes from the incredible dust that painted her as an ancient flushed statue. The silence was perhaps intentional to harrow him. Finally, she looked at him and they met halfway in the room. "I don't like your attitude," she said sharply.

"I don't understand," Fenris said and searched his mind. Nothing was there. Arguably a good thing. "Did I upset you?"

"Yeah you did," Hawke said sharply yet again.

Fenris crossed his arms immediately and asked her, "How?"

Hawke shook her head and stretched her arms out as she articulated angrily, "You go all 'I need time alone', but then you talk to Varric for hours on end – and no, don't kill him because I couldn't get anything else out of him –and with Mother you're all happy smiles and endless rainbows and the perfect gentleman!" Hawke shouted. "And with me it seems you're pulling away by the second, as if I'm here all just to harrow hell upon you and you need to run away."

"Hawke," Fenris said flatly, his arms crossed as he watched her pace to and fro.

And she kept pacing angrily. "I knew it. I knew it when I told you in Antiva that you were going to run away."

"Hawke," Fenris said again, looking at her sharply.

"And I should've listened to myself-"

"HAWKE." Fenris caught her by the shoulders and almost shouted, "I talk to Varric because he's a man. I'm happy smiles and rainbows with your mother because one, she is a wonderful woman and I owe her a great deal, and two, I will not see the light of day if I ever let myself slip and get on her bad side."

"Bad side?" Hawke asked with a heavy frown. "How would you get on her bad side?"

"By having you over in the middle of the night for instance," Fenris said coldly, and let go of her.

Hawke let herself be painted with the fullness of a scowl. She flung her arm out. "Psht. I'm a grown woman capable of making my own decisions."

"Yet you need to climb on the roof to get into my house," Fenris said flatly, crossing his arms again.

"It's called being resourceful," Hawke said proudly with an indomitable face

"It's called being a child," Fenris said with half-lidded eyes.

She locked her angry look onto him and crossed her arms. "Then I guess what you're called is a paedophile."

Now Fenris was enveloped by the might of his scowl. "I am not."

She shrugged innocently. "Take it back and I take it back."

"Fine. You are not a child," Fenris muttered with his arms still crossed. He looked up at her and finished, "You are simply childish."

"That's bet- HEY."

"Are you really going to contradict me on this one?"

"No, I'm simply going all HEY because feelings hurt," Hawke said while scratching her head.

Fenris finally broke into soft lauther. "Thus confirming my previous statement."

"And how are you more mature than me?" Hawke demanded and pointed her accusatory finger at him. "You went all free bird disappearing boy on me."

For some reason, seeing her angry about it, and being confused about exactly what she meant, he gripped tighter on his crossed arms, thus designing signs of anger.

"What do you prefer?" Fenris asked sharply, his eyes cold and dark. "You wish me to court you? Woo you? Perhaps get on my knees and beg?"

"No!" Hawke shouted and drawled while shaking her head, "I'm not some pretentious little maiden and you're not some knight in shining armour." She drawled again. "And I certainly don't want you doing that last thing you said."

"I'm relieved," Fenris said unemotionally. He gestured towards her demandingly. "What would you have me do then?"

Hawke threw her head back and rolled her eyes. "You ask me? Do what your damn muscle tells you."

"Which one," Fenris muttered grumpily.

"They're telling you different things?" Hawke asked in amusement.

Fenris flung his arms out in a mask of calmness. "Well you are certainly a child if you cannot grasp the very nature of how these muscles work."

"I  _know_  how muscles work," Hawke said in irritation. "I just don't get what your problem is."

"My problem is you," Fenris said angrily and gestured as he continued, "You string me along in Antiva, half-heartedly allowing me in,  _never_ talking about it, and then just as quickly shrink from me every time the entirety of my muscles attempt something other than  _talking_." He crossed his arms again and looked at her coldly. "And now that we're back in Kirkwall, you think I'm going to keep this up like some brain-dead dog barking up your knee?"

"Of course not," Hawke shouted and drawled nervously, "But I don't appreciate you shrinking from me."

"Painful isn't it?" Fenris said, a grin drawing up on his face. "When you get to feel your own weapon used against you."

"This is not a weapon," Hawke shouted. She shook her head. "And I'm not pertaining to what happened. I'm saying that I don't like it when you shrink from me as a friend. Something happened with you. Not with us." She pointed outside. "And I'm not sure if it was back in Antiva or it was something here. And it's not very helpful to me that you go all cold on me now."

"Ugh, what do you want from me?" Fenris shouted and stretched his arms out. "Is it not enough that I show you I haven't forgotten you all with my half-assed disappearance? Is it not enough that I haven't completely vanished? Is it not enough that I took it in my own hands to protect you from yourself and even from me for that matter?"

"Don't make this about me or about my magic  _or_ about your damn predicament," Hawke said decisively and pointed at him. "This is about you cowarding away from me because you fear that I might not be barking up your own door anytime soon."

"Yes, you caught me," Fenris shouted angrily. He threw his arms out in irritation. "I fear that you're never going to show up and fall from my own roof ever again. I'm terrified that I have made a dangerous mistake that I may never have the means to reverse ever again."

She narrowed her eyes and scowled as she shouted and articulated in exasperation, "You, you – you little impossible man that lies by telling the truth in a dramatic manner!"

"I am not little," Fenris pressed angrily.

"That's not what – ugh," Hawke growled and threw her arms up. "Fine. You know what? Forget I said anything."

"I wish I could," Fenris said.

"Oh, great," Hawke shouted and joined her hands. "Be even more dramatic. This really doesn't suit you, Fenris."

"Nothing about this suits me, Hawke!" Fenris shouted and clamped his face with both his hands. He stood there like that for several moments. When his hands fell away from his face, revealing his both tormented and infuriated expression, he shouted again, "I'm an escaped slave and an elf living in a borrowed mansion. What do all these things say to you, hm?"

"That you'll make millions if you write your memoirs," Hawke said undauntedly with a shrug.

"Memoirs that will hold a reality much graver than you can ever imagine," Fenris pressed hoarsely.

"Oh really?" Hawke shouted and beckoned. "Wanna hear my story?"

"Let's hear it," Fenris growled and crossed his arms.

She raised her arms up and kept a perfectly straight face as she uttered, "Once upon a time, no one gave a fuck."

"Nothing about this has ever remotely tickled your mind that you're diving into dangerous territory?" Fenris asked unyieldingly, but the fear rose and strangled out the wound.

"No," Hawke pressed as quickly as he said it, and in exasperation, she flung her arms out. "I don't give a flying copper about your predicament. And you don't give a fuck about mine either."

Fenris remained silent, trying to keep a straight and cold face.

She shut her eyes bitterly and tightened her lips. It was extraordinarily expressive of the kind of anger that hurts straight into the chest.

"Well?" Hawke shouted finally. Her cheeks were red and flushed. "Do you honestly give a damn about me being a mage? Or a human? Or a better warrior than you?"

"You had me at human," Fenris said with narrowed eyes, crossing his arms very commandingly. "Although I do take issue with one thing."

She felt no tenderness for him suddenly, for he seemed so strong as he stood there, so very certain of himself and of the statement he had just put on her.

"Let me guess," Hawke muttered as she rolled her eyes and stretched her arms out. "My jokes? My drinking? My everything that screams unladylike behaviour? My stupid clown mage ways? My delving into everyone's business? Or perhaps my utter and impossible need to strive for –"

"That you don't know when to shut up," Fenris growled and dragged her forcefully into his arms. He clamped her mouth with the most intense kiss he had ever planted upon her lips. A few moments very long afterwards, he broke the kiss and made her gasp for air.

"Alright," Hawke said in-between short little pants. "Point – taken."

"Are you certain?" Fenris asked. "Or do I need to make myself clearer?"

"It wouldn't hurt," Hawke said with a contained grin. "I mean to be fair –"

Fenris pulled her back evermore forcefully and pressed his lips against hers. She fell right against him, almost stumbling, and Fenris pulled her very close, responding a little more rashly perhaps than she had expected. But she was not displeased. His creamy skin was almost luminous; and it burned. He caught her face with impossible ardency, and thrust his hand through her long red hair which maddened him with its unholy luster, and her beautiful playful lips with their inevitable warmth.

She caught him by the shoulders and pulled away, and when their lips parted it left an urgent burning sensation all with the stamp of wanting more. As broke away, an air of tigerish growls escaped Fenris's lips and he looked at her with his green half-lidded eyes, questioning and arguing.

"Are you kissing me so that I will not talk?" she asked.

"Yes, that's exactly what I was doing," he said.

"No more," Hawke said and raised her palm to stop. "I will not take more of this."

"You are impossible," Fenris muttered grumpily.

"No, I'm improbable," Hawke corrected mockingly. "As in improbable to let this go or be deceived in this manner."

"How am I deceiving you?" Fenris said aloud, desperate and trying to contain it.

"Whatever is on your chest, get it off," Hawke demanded. "This thing where you shrink from me as my damned friend is getting on my nerves and I will not take it. Shrinking from other positions is fine by me and understandable, but I will not have this ridiculous charade where we slowly become estranged from a friendship that I've kept with an iron heart to preserve all these years."

"Damn it, Hawke," Fenris growled as he looked down.

Imagine a figure of ice, as perfectly made as the ancient statues of old, thrown into the fire, and sizzling, and melting, and yet the features wondrously intact still… well, such was Fenris when emotions infected him, as they did now.

For a moment, she said nothing. Her eyes were narrow and her lips slightly parted, as if she was pondering this with extreme concentration

"I am not some happy get-away," Hawke declared suddenly in deep determination. "And I will not have you solely confide in Varric and pull away from me. Next thing that will happen is Varric's going to be the unfortunate friend caught in the middle of all this and sooner or later he'll have to pack his bags and run to the Anderfels to get away from us and the hell we'll harrow ever so nicely upon him."

"Fine," Fenris growled sharply as he narrowed his eyes. He flung his arms out in silence, then his shoulders sank. "I saw some people that made my blood freeze as we left Antiva. I haven't slept peacefully ever since. Happy now?"

"If you elaborate," Hawke demanded.

Fenris sighed and growled, "Those feathered steel plates that you found in Tantervale. I had almost died there. It was just before I arrived in Kirkwall."

"And?" Hawke said.

"There was this man," Fenris started and paced around as he explained without looking at her, "He was a hunter. Constantine I think his name was. I killed his brother who was marching as captain with his troops upon me in Perivantium. It was not long before Constantine took it personally and came after me himself."

She remembered the dream, how could she forget. She beckoned for him to go on.

Fenris lowered his gaze and his shoulder sank. He needed to sit down, but he was petrified. He resumed his pace and continued, "I'd… grown tired of the chase. When I reached the Free Marches I was dead beat and there'd been a great sensation telling me that I should just let them come and there'd be no more reasons to hide."

"And thus he found you," Hawke said.

Fenris pressed his lips and sighed. He looked down in shame. "Those had been reasons that helped cover up the wider reality that – I'd grown lazy."

"And tired of running, what's so bad about that?" Hawke asked.

"I almost died, Hawke," Fenris said. "And after I barely managed to survive, I came upon Anso in a forgotten alley and he was the one to point me to Kirkwall. But the hunters were already onto me, since I was indeed lazy and careless… I didn't kill all of them. And there's a good chance that bastard might have risen up from the dead."

He kept pacing and then he finally stopped, sighed and growled bitterly, "Why can't people just stay dead?"

"And that's how they sought to lure you into the Alienage, wasn't it?" Hawke asked.

"Yes," Fenris said. "Thankfully I had Anso to help me." He paused as if he didn't wish the words to escape his lips. "And then you came along."

"What was it that you were looking for in that chest?" Hawke demanded.

Fenris lowered his head, probably to curse at her in his mind that with her sturdy mind she had never forgotten anything all these years. "That man's brother, Felix, did not in fact die." He looked up at her grim and serious. "I did not really kill him."

"I'm sensing something worse," Hawke said a bit unsteady.

"When he found me and I killed all his men, he begged me not to kill him," Fenris said in a low voice. He paused again, because he had to labour so much into words he had never thought would escape him. "He told me he despised his life, that he was all against the horrors and the utter disgrace that the Imperium became yet again because of the mages who had manage to strip every living and breathing being from political rights except for their own kind. And not even their own kind, what am I saying? They do not hesitate to collar their own."

"And you let him live," Hawke said.

"It felt… wrong, to kill him," Fenris said in a haunted voice. He pressed his lips with remorse. "I never showed any speck of mercy to Tevinter soldiers. Mercenaries yes, once or twice I yelled at them to run and never come back when they yielded, because they were hired swords with no possible hope for brains… but those soldiers all had it coming. Most are too clever for their foolish creed."

"Then why did it feel wrong?" Hawke asked.

"You have not been in the Imperium," Fenris said as he sat down on the bed. "Magisters are vicious people and they control everything from the lowest shop to the highest institutions. Even the Archon has limited power over them all. And humans are instructed all their lives to think lowly of elves and more so of themselves, but still hold on to a sense of meritocrasy… that they are still a step higher than us on the social ladder. They are told to forever protect the blazon of the Imperium and defend their leaders with the highest honor."

"All bull then," Hawke said. A smile had escaped him and he let himself chuckle. She returned that smile and caught his image. It was painful laughter still.

Then his eyes grew dark again and designing penancing thoughts as he bitterly resumed, "I don't know… when I saw that man under my sword, I felt his honesty. I was a slave –I knew exactly when someone was lying. I didn't need any science or sorcery to tell me this. And he was indeed, honest when he said he saw it all for what it was –and he wanted an end to his fate."

"So you showed him mercy," Hawke said and pondered on it. This was heavier than she suspected. Ill-tempered and bitter and highly instinctual, Fenris would have never showed mercy to any soul that bore the dragon and snake heraldry. He was capable of it, of course, but more importantly not to the ones that meant to kill him.

"I did," Fenris said bitterly and joined his hands entangled. "I let him live and offered him a chance to start anew, outside of the Imperium."

"Then why did his brother want to kill you?" Hawke asked.

"He didn't want to be found," Fenris said. "If he ever wished to get the chance to make a living outside, he knew better than to make himself known, even to his family. The highest danger in Tevinter is to depend too greatly on one's own family, clan or collegues. They are all zealots, highly brain-washed and blindly loyal to their country. They've been brought up this way –the Imperium's interest come first, with no question."

"So if his brother knew he was alive, he'd find him just as easily as he found you and he'd drag him back… and perhaps get him killed because he betrayed the Imperium," Hawke said, more to herself.

"That is correct," Fenris said flatly. "So I resolved to keep his secret. And I took the bull by its horns when it came upon me with all its troops."

"And you almost died for it," Hawke said. "But… what does this have to do with the chest?"

"To honour my act of mercy, Felix granted me all the locations in which the hunters were going, all the things Danarius knew about my whereabouts, his intentions, his strategies, his plans, everything." He paused and lowered his gaze as he clutched at the edge of the bed. "Including a certain former magister that rivalled Danarius and his unnatural attempts to create the most powerful living weapon against his own kind. He opposed Danarius in front of the Archon himself, because he couldn't really do the ritual and keep me without permission from the highest source."

"Let me guess. He didn't get permission," Hawke said.

"The magister harrowed all his forces against Danarius and promised he would bring him down," Fenris said. "Suffice it to say, it didn't end well. He didn't take into account that he was walking on thin ice himself in his position. Danarius kept his fingers in a lot of pots… and it didn't take long for him to find out this magister took a fancy with the boys…"

"So what if he did?" Hawke asked. "Isn't homosexuality like a normal thing nowadays everywhere in Thedas?"

"Not in Tevinter," Fenris said with furrowed brows. "It happens everywhere, but beyond closed doors. The higher the rank you have, the worse it is if the truth comes out and the quicker everything you've worked for in your career crumbles to the ground."

"So blood magic is okay, but doing the nasty with the boys is a big no-no?" Hawke said in outrage.

"It wasn't just that," Fenris said sharply. "I believe… I don't remember anymore, but I understood that it had something to do with the magister having an intimate relationship with his wife's brother… or his daughter's husband or… something ridiculous like that."

"So what happened?" Hawke asked.

"It would have been a disgrace, but not just for him. His family would have been in grave danger of being ridiculed and stripped down of their rights. They could've been quickly enslaved." Fenris looked down and pressed his lips. "You'd be surprised how rapid it is in Tevinter that the ones in the highest of ranks could simply end up collared forever from something like this."

"What a country…" Hawke muttered. "Kirkwall seems the paradise of justice and fairness in comparison."

Fenris nodded shortly and resumed, "The magister had to flee the Imperium to save his family, and he sought to find a better life in the Free Marches, even if he was to be an apostate."

"Another illuminated soul?" Hawke asked. "Where does it end?"

"It ended in the Alienage," Fenris said sharply. "The former magister let slip that I was to find a courtesy in that chest."

"What exactly then?" Hawke asked.

"A means to an end," Fenris said sharply with half-lidded eyes. Hawke lifted her eyebrows and he beheld her surprised and bewildered expression. He remained silent for several moments, then he raised his hand and explained in a bitter tone, "Everything I had never known about the ritual, my markings, my abilities, the true purpose of my creation…" he paused and pressed his eyes shut as he finished bitterly, "…who I was before all this."

"He wanted to help you have the upper hand," Hawke said quickly. "And the chest was empty."

"He sold me out perhaps," Fenris said flatly and shook his head bitterly as he closed his eyes. "I don't even know… perhaps Danarius got his hands on him first, perhaps he got his hands on the belongings of that chest and sought to use it anyway as bait." He looked down and uttered bitterly through his hair, "It doesn't matter any longer."

"So that's why you went hot-headed mage hater on me so quickly," Hawke said finally, more to herself. "You were angry at yourself that you allowed yourself to be merciful, and then got played and lured into your death, if you hadn't been blessed by luck."

"I had been blessed with a guardian angel, indeed," Fenris said coldly, then he lowered his head. "And I did nothing but be ungrateful to it."

Hawke would've slapped him, but she contained her urge and resolved to ask another question. "And you never vanished from Kirkwall… why?"

"Are you an idiot?" Fenris asked sharply, looking at her.

"No, but I'm not very bright either," Hawke said and sat down next to him.

Fenris pressed his lips and looked away. "I had already told you the night we met. If they are to come, let them come. I am too old and too tired to run."

"But you never really lived," Hawke said in a soft voice. "You never ran away, but you were always ready to. That's why you kept this mansion on the brink of ruin, despite you looking like the tidiest most calculated man in the world. There was no point in conveying meaning to the house by preserving it… because you could have been forced to abandon it at any given time."

"And I might still be," Fenris said bitterly, looking away still. He shook his head and closed his eyes. "Now do you understand?"

"I hope this is self-explanatory even as I press overredundantly and spell it clearly out for you that I will never sell you out," Hawke started, then stroked his shoulder. "And you never need to run. Not with me around."

"That is exactly the reason why I should," Fenris said quickly, striking her the most soul-breaking look of sorrow. "You were right. I was all infatuated with what happened between us before the trip… and I never had the chance to sit and think on how incredibly foolish I was to engage myself in this. And remarkably inconsiderate of your safety."

"I hate it when I'm right," Hawke said with a sigh. "I also hate it when I have to talk to the flaming idiot inside you, instead of the more reasonable, way more intelligent one of you."

"What?" Fenris asked in confusion. "How am I an idiot?"

"Fenris… I can fucking rule the world if I wish," Hawke said sharply, throwing her arms out in the air. "I can do whatever I want to if my evil mind and muscle feel like it. You said it, Zevran said it, Varric said it. You said I'm too proud to do it."

"I did. What of it?" Fenris asked.

"Do you think… that there was the slightest chance I could get myself in danger because of you… I wouldn't make it so that you'd be on your way?" Hawke asked while locking her serious eyes onto his incredibly tense ones. "Do you really think with my utterly keen mind and with all my evil intuition foreseeing things before they happened… connecting all the dots and controlling everything and everyone like my clueless little puppets… that I wouldn't have simply banished you away?"

"I don't understand," Fenris said flatly, eyebrows joined in a highly bothered frown.

Hawke sighed heavily and gestured towards him. "If I thought there was a better place where you could go to so you could be safe… and in so protecting myself too if anything should come… that I wouldn't have done it in a heartbeat?"

"You clearly don't waste any time," Fenris said half-sarcastically.

"I've had a lot of it to think this over three years ago," Hawke said with an all-knowing smile. "Truly, there's no better place for me as well as you to be in. Even with the Templars, I've invested a great deal here with all that money and my position is heavily preserved by my unyielding attitude and cut-throat calculated way of dealing with the nobility. With that, I control all the stakes and almost all the political and administrative puppets I wish, all with the help of Aveline in her open position and Varric in his shadowy one. And with that…"

"You get to protect me," Fenris finished calmly. He contained his smile and rested his hand on his knee. "You mean everything you say, don't you?"

"I don't waste time with lying, especially not to my friends," Hawke said with a smile. "So are we good now?"

"Not quite," Fenris growled decisively. In other words, he was saying, "Shut up about friendship."

But Fenris, undeterred, suddenly rose from the bed and dropped on his knees before Hawke at the edge of the bed, lean and handsome with mesmeric green eyes, and he took her hand and kissed it and said, "I wasn't lying either when I said you can trust in me and you shall never come to harm." What was it that made him give voice to such a sentiment? Was it fear? Was it on the contrary, determination? He couldn't say. But it was true, and he knew it, as if his lips had sought to instruct his heart.

He was a man alright, tender face or no as he said it.

"Oh, Fenris, if only I could lay my head to rest next to yours," Hawke said softly and stroked his cheek and held onto his strong jaw. "If I could only yield to your protection. But you are driving me away! You don't promise guardianship, you ordain flight for me, wandering and more nightmares, and mystery, and despair. No. I can't."

As his face grew ever more smooth with her hand on his cheek, away went the few lines that could so easily design anger in his expression. "Don't tell me that I'll never see you again," Fenris growled quietly, clutching at the hand on his cheek. "Don't think I can bear that along with everything else that's happened. I have no one here, and then who comes but one who left such a stamp on my heart that the details are as deep as the finest coin. And you say this now, I simply can't allow it."

Hawke chuckled and took his hands in hers. "Of course you'll see me. I will always be here. But this promise of guardianship you give me comes with another promise and you know it."

"And what if it does?" Fenris asked unyieldingly, narrowed eyes, the very effigy of a strong man.

"I will take it when you're truly ready to make that promise," Hawke said with a smile. "And when I am truly ready to take it. I will not do anything half-heartedly and I will not allow myself moments of weakness anymore. At the moment, as you said, a lot has happened, and I am yet to bring myself to understand what has happened."

Fenris looked at her, overcome with fear. And then his eyes seemed to mist over, his lips to go slack. "Ah, I understand," he said with a sad face, lowering his head again and muttering through his hair, "I must be patient."

"This isn't just me, Fenris," Hawke pressed and tightened her grip on his hands. "Look at yourself. You're diving into extremes. Between running away under the pretence that it is for my sake and staying here with me on a full, serious, permanent basis, I suspect."

"You suspect correctly," Fenris said bitterly. "Perhaps I have been a little too hasty with my promises."

"You mean them though," Hawke said softly and smiled at him. "Which is more than I can argue for."

"And yet you're not the one to make such promises," Fenris said flatly, searching her gaze more deeply.

"I already have made them," Hawke almost shouted all-smiling. "I told you I'm not going anywhere and my friendship to you is eternal. Do you return this promise?"

"Of course I do," Fenris said rather quickly, surprising himself. "Need I remind you what I did for you on the road?"

"No need," Hawke said happily and gave him one of her elusive smiles, closing her eyes. "Although you did throw me off completely with that. Not your most surprising talent for bullshitting the hell out of people, but with the very intent of it. I am indeed to stand very corrected and I thank you, Fenris. It was foolish of me to ever think you would do otherwise."

He looked up at her. How soft and beautiful her face was, and, suddenly, so much warmth came from his own. He felt no compunction in yielding to his urge to touch her cheeks, to lightly kiss her lips – familiarities, liberties he hadn't taken with her since the night of their quarrel.

"I told you, you were wrong," Fenris said finally with a contained boyish smirk.

"Oh, dear, and how I love it when you go all smug and wiseass on me," Hawke said half-sarcastically with her eyes still closed and smiling.

But she was looking into his eyes now, and her pain bathed her in a beauteous light, a light which made her irresistibly alluring. It was this that held the jaded audience, this terrible pain.

Fenris couldn't help but lock onto her gaze with the same alluring look in his half-lidded green eyes and with all the decidedness of a tiger, get up and put his arms around her, climbing up against her, pressing her head against his heart. Her hands were reluctant to touch him; and then they moved as if she couldn't stop them, to enfold him and hold him and stroke his hair. This terrible battle in her all in good reason and in even more astounding calmness and clarity threw him off just as well, until finally, he bent and kissed her soft neck. Suddenly he planted another rougher one on her cheek as he caught her face. Red winter plums. Red plums from an enchanted wood where the fruit never falls from the boughs while it's enveloped by the white starkly snow. Where the flowers never wither and die. "Alright, my dear…" Fenris said to her in the softest voice his deep manly voice could get to. "All right."

And her head inclined to him now, so like the attitude of the warrior bending to kiss that he shrank back from her; but her lips only gently pressed his own, finding a part there to suck the breath and let it flow back into him as his arms enclosed her. Rampant, comforting chills went through him. Oh, the pure sweetness of it. And it seemed an eternity that he just sat there feeling her lips. "I'll see you again; not here, in other places. Always I'll know where you are!" she whispered childishly to his lips, without really pulling away from them.

Then Hawke put her arms around his neck. She held him tight, and he closed his eyes and buried his face in her red hair. "Are you happy now? Do you have what you want?" Fenris whispered in a low, soft tune.

"Yes, Fenris," she said and shifted her silvery gaze onto him. He looked so determined and serene, divorced from doubt for a night. She held him against her, her fingers clasping the back of his neck. "I have all that I want. But do you truly know what you want?" She lifted his face so he had to look into her overpowering eyes. "It's you I fear for, you who might be making the mistake."

"I tire of this," Fenris said suddenly, grabbing her hands away from his face. "Cease with your own guardianship if you do not allow mine."

"Alright, alright," Hawke said and laughed softly. She locked her gaze onto his firm little green eyes. "You are as of now released from my guardianship until further notice."

"Good. That makes things much easier," Fenris said firmly and dragged her back into the wildest, most ardent kiss and an embrace so tight she felt the hotness of his skin clamping and reaching the very nerves of her soul. He stood there, all devoid of shame and doubts, locking his lips onto her that spelled fire on them and made her shudder. He crushed her against him totally. He held the kiss for a long moment. But instead of breaking away again all cleared-eyed and kissing her forehead goodbye as if she were chaste again, Fenris forced her mouth open, all-sober and knowing, and she let him slip his serpent tongue into hers. Hot, hot were his lips, but even hotter was his tongue, harrowing all the warmth and strength of the sunny skies of the north into her mouth, and the sturdiness and unconquerable force of the most decisive wild tiger. He tilted his head to better suit their kiss, seeming now as an all-knowing lover all devoid yet again of any doubts or fears. He caught her face in his hands, and those were just as ardent and feverish almost. Even his breathing was ardent as he kissed her so firmly. Even those few groans of pleasure he let escape his mouth every time she bit his lower lip and he remained locked to her and that feminine, alluring power she held over him.

It felt like an eternity that they this, and then just a wisp of time when she found herself lying next to him and staring at the crack she made in the wall. He'd been stroking her hair as he had her enclosed in his arms all upon his chest. She kept almost too silent, she felt like a melted pot of honey just lying there until the wrath of the apocalypse. He wasn't far from that wish either. "Hawke," he finally let escape his lips.

"I'm drowsy. I can hardly form words," she said in a low voice.

"What a blessing," he said.

"There is no need for such an insult," she murmured. "But I forgive you."

His lips formed a mocking smile as he looked up at him, and then there came from him a wicked laughter. "Then I am content."

"I will fall asleep," she said with her eyes closed. "I can't stay."

"A voice of reason," he said meanly, and grinned all-knowing. "Pleasure to finally have you acquaintance."

"It's like your second nature to be arrogant, isn't it?" she murmured with an elusive smile.

"It's purely involuntary," Fenris said with a little smile and brought her to his lips again. He kissed her more softly this time, already devoid of his rough manly kisses, but still hot and stamped with that familiar ardency of his.

Then she moved, the softness of her smaller body suddenly snatched from him, in a movement so graceful and swift despite her weariness that she seemed now poised in the air beside the bed, her hand clutching his for an instant, then letting it go. And then he looked up to see her looking down at him, standing on the floor in the shuddering pool of light beneath the one roaring candle in the room. "Good night, Fenris."

He caught her smile and nodded with his eyelids. "Good night, Hawke."

 


	44. Varric's Birthday I : Choices And Changes

**Late Morning of Varric's Name Day, Fenris's Mansion**

When Hawke knocked ineptly with her elbow on his door holding two glasses of wine, she was greeted with a most disquieting, inconceivable, derailing, mind-blowing … absolutely incredible sight. The door was opened rapidly and powerfully and it felt like a whole wave of heat or rather a piercing shot of blizzard came out and blew in her face as she saw Fenris clutching onto it with a most irritated scowl that could have doomed the whole vault of heaven and made it crumble and collapse to the deepest pit of the Void if he ever looked up. Beside this powerful canvas of irritation and crossness that fearsomely shaped, or better yet twisted the faint traceries of Fenris's generally cold expression, his face, his hair and his unarmoured dark vest were all covered in flour or powder. Either that or his cold blood finally decided to freeze the hell out of him from the inside out.

Faced with this incredible oddity Hawke remained entirely speechless for a second before her mind began twisting and turning in a fine abundance of writhing aberrations.

"Well now," she started, biting at her lip in terrible urgency to laugh, "Powdering your nose so early in the morning? … And missing the nose entirely from the equation?"

Fenris glared at her in silence, not one chance to wipe that fear-provoking monumental scowl off his face. Another harrowing second passed with that indomitable expression when, undaunted, Fenris blew air up his face and the flour came off his hair and flew into empty space.

Hawke tried with all her power not to laugh and with raising the two glasses of wine, she said, "I come in peace and bearing gifts."

"That's the same thing the Teofits said before they conquered and burned Vol Dorma to the ground," Fenris said flatly.

"The who on what?" she asked in confusion.

Fenris inhaled deeply and muttered, "They were a migratory tribe of –"

"Sorry," Hawke snorted, "I just can't take you seriously or even pay attention to one word you say while looking like that."

"My, what a blessing," Fenris muttered grumpily, "That you come to know how it is to be in my shoes every day I am in your company."

"You don't wear shoes," Hawke said with a smile.

"How keen of you to notice," Fenris replied coldly.

"So what's on the menu?" she asked in amusement. "Elf pie with a side of grump?"

"Apple pie," Fenris said flatly, clutching at the door angrily. "As you can see it comes with a promise of war and havoc across the land."

"Stick a hand... or a head in the flame for that?" Hawke asked while snorting.

Fenris rolled his eyes and asked, "Is there a point to this early visit?"

She raised the glasses with an elusive smile, "Wine?"

"No thank you," he muttered.

"Alright," she said nonchalantly and poured the whole liquid from the second glass into the first. "I'll need all of it anyway."

"How shocking," Fenris uttered and beckoned for her to come in.

She walked in and said, "Well you're not very unpredictable either, Grouchy Lord of Apples."

Fenris turned around and started to walk. He muttered, "It's the only one I know how to make." Then he turned his head half-way and smirked as he said, "Which is one more than you can say for yourself."

"Well…" she muttered, sizing him up from behind and taking a good sip. "I certainly don't want a slice of  _that_ sourcake."

"I am not in the finest mood, it's true," Fenris said as he walked into a room. There lay numerous batches of dough, powder, flour, jars of something golden, steeped and sliced apples on the table and the smell of despair everywhere around it. He leaned with his arm against the edge of the table and contained his smile as he said, "Suffice is to say, I'm two burnt batches away from only slightly pulling my hair out."

"That's why I only cook drunk," Hawke said positively and hit him on the arm with the glass of wine. She winked and commenced a silent toast for the fallen.

"I should say I'm relieved," Fenris muttered, then he shot her a little smirk again. "But that is not the only reason your culinary skills are detestable beyond hope."

"Well now, mighty God of Pastries, I see no practical reason for developing such a useless skill," she protested confidently. "The only thing I need to know is how to spot the best piece of food to use as a projectile in the highly imaginary scenery where I find myself in complete lack of real weapons."

"Not to put ideas in that disturbed little head of yours but," he said flatly and searched her gaze. "Are you planning on finding such a use for the sprouts this evening?"

"Not unless I'm provoked," Hawke replied confidently. "Which is highly unlikely, considering my nerves of steel."

"I see you've already begun early on baptizing those nerves of steel," Fenris said flatly.

"I see you've already begun early with depressing the hell out of this," she paused and looked around, "kitchen/dungeon/cellar/good place to dump a body in."

"Your Mother gave me a duty," Fenris said while shrugging nonchalantly. "I am not taking it lightly."

"You don't have to try so hard though," Hawke said and started to grin. "She won't judge your baking as much as she'll be busy judging you."

Fenris swallowed heavily and upped his gaze with questioning. Silence.

Hawke shrugged and tried not to let her evil grin out as she said, "It hasn't crossed your mind that there's an ulterior motive for the pie duty?"

"I am not as paranoid as you are," Fenris said in a false mask of calmness.

"Oh, but I do hope you're as perceptive as I am," Hawke replied with an all-knowing grin. She took a sip of pride and malevolence. "More importantly, as perceptive as Mother is."

Again, silence. His hands were stunned and almost crushing the dough, about to explode of fear.

Hawke let him be dismayed for a few more harrowing seconds before she broke into chuckles and said, "I'm kidding." He finally let the dough breathe again.

"So you're the only one going judgemental on me then?" Fenris asked and gave her a smirk.

"Nah, I tired out of it," Hawke said nonchalantly, leaning against the edge of the table and shot him an evil smile. "Now I'm only mercilessly observant."

"You're such a pie," Fenris said calmly, moulding the dough. She took an apple and attempted to take a bite out of it, but he snatched it out of her hands in a second.

"Oh and how I worship my creator," Hawke commented sarcastically.

"I am indeed kind of like a god," Fenris said with smile, scrutinizing the green apple with red spots. "All with creating something out of nothing." He paused a second, put the apple down and reshaped a piece of flattened dough. Shortly thereafter a ghostly smirk came upon his face as he said, "Or better yet, something beautiful out of something originally tedious."

"I hope you're only pertaining to the dough," Hawke said while narrowing her eyes.

"Of course," Fenris said calmly, containing his smile.

"Well then, I humbly appoint you Fenris, as the Mighty God of Pastries," Hawke said in amusement and commenced another one-man toast.

"That sounds quite appropriate," Fenris said flatly.

"So she taught you how to bake?" she pressed softly. "While I was gone?"

Fenris pressed his lips and hesitated for a second. The involuntary feeling of shame came upon his face but he contained it tactfully and said, "How to cook, more likely. The baking came long after that."

"Well, I'll be damned," she said while smiling and shaking her head in amazement. "Way to go, Mother."

"I owe her a great deal," he said flatly, working on the dough more quickly now.

"So tell me," she said with an evil grin. "Did she also teach you how to make flower arrangements? Knit? Saw buttons? Wax hair off your legs maybe?"

"Those are not skills that I need," Fenris said calmly. "Neither do you."

"As if you didn't know how to roast a rabbit or a chicken on the run," Hawke said assertively. "And even so, cooking is one thing. Baking is completely different."

"Consider it a small thing I decided to enjoy once in a while," he said all unperturbed. Hawke was about to say something, but quickly remained speechless as Fenris took a slice of an apple dipped in something golden and reached with it to her mouth. He looked at her nonchalantly and waited for her to open it. "I promise this one is not poisoned."

She narrowed her eyes and frowned, but not because she was distrustful perchance Fenris magically poisoned the apple. Several moments too many passed and his cold green eyes remained undeterred by her contained hesitation. A spark went through them, as if to tell her, "Wipe off that dumb look on your face and take it." And so she did, without using her hand, and for some reason he had to watch her with that dark look of his as though to make sure she didn't spit it out or something. Then he resumed on his work. The slice tasted just fine, perfect blend of sour and sweet.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Honey and cinnamon," he said, while crushing an apple.

"Cinnamon?" she asked in confusion.

"It's some kind of Antivan spice."

"Alright, I'm calling it," she said confidently and brought out her pocket watch. "Time of Gay – 10:47."

Fenris raised an eyebrow and contained his smirk. He resumed his work calmly and said, "My, what a nice moustache you have."

"I'm sorry my friend, but you can't get out of this one with sarcasm," she said all smiling.

"It was not sarcasm," he said and finally showed his smirk without looking at her. "You really do have one."

"I do not!" she said in outrage, but little did she notice she did have one made out of the honey from that apple slice. She wiped it off grumpily while he kept smirking to eternity.

After a while, she took a moment to roam about the hallway and leave him alone in his concentration. It had been a long time since she inspected all these dark passages made out of fine ancient stone, the roaring fire torches amongst them and at last, the grand hallway full of crumbling paintings and dark heathen statues. The bed chambers were all neat and simple, but seemed as though they had never been touched at all, apart from his own study and place of rest both-in-one. Up above, the roof had been repaired and down below, there were no more stubborn lonely mushrooms growing out of the floor. In one far corner he installed a table with an oil lamp and a few old books scattered across.

Up the stairs and into his room, he put up a weaponry stand on the left, all full of valuable two-handed swords and old daggers they'd found in their journeys but didn't want to sell and which Hawke didn't wish to take for herself. He kept the ghost blade from Antiva. On the right, the rectangular dark fireplace pleaded to be lighted near another great table of books and scattered glasses, teacups and red candles. In front of the fireplace there stood the two lonely burgundy armchairs which bore the memory of so many deep conversations they used to share in the intimacy of this dark room with only the roaring flames as their witness.

On the left, he moved the bed so the board with correctly stand up against the wall and the once hideous golden sheets had been replaced with silken red and teal patterned ones he bought from the city market all on his own – to her and Varric's genuine surprise. All portraits of Tevinter origin had been taken down. The one great closet by his bed was moved on the other side and day by day, it grew heavier with new belongings. Not very much to hope for, but while not being just a poor elf in a borrowed mansion anymore –the poor part at least had died out– it had been a year or so since Fenris started buying himself clothes and some several items of armory. Understand, not some extravagant or vast change, but there were times in her visits when she'd find him wearing simple dark linen shirts, once or twice even a shirt of somewhat azure color which, she couldn't deny, highlighted his handsome eyes and ivory hair. And of course, he liked to sleep with nothing more than an ugly pair of black shorts that Hawke resolved to remark upon they should need some red girdle around to slap away the hideousness. Fenris of course, resolved to ignore her remark. Until one early morning of a great hangover when she disturbed his sleep thinking he was already up and noticed he didn't ignore it quite so much anymore. And the cold stone floor was now partly covered by a crimson rug of somewhat Antivan appearance. Oh, what a snake. He didn't only buy those vertical-lined pants it seems.

Yes, Fenris made a few simple but quite arguably good changes to his home, perhaps more so to his own being. They were few and small, but they were noticeable simply because other than those, he had always appeared to be utterly divorced from change.

She remembered a little quarrel they had a while ago in this room in of those long nights when they would read together from the Book of Shartan. He would always start reading in fascination at his words, but close to the end his face would always change into a very miserable expression. He was in pain. He tried to hide it. Or perhaps he was trying to make the pain go away. Perhaps in doing so, that was the reason he would become a bit irascible in his mutterings and deject almost all of Hawke's opinions even if in truth he had agreed completely. In a way, he was simply tied to the conclusion that it didn't ultimately matter. Shartan was dead. Thousands of tormented souls before him died and thousands more did after him, and the cycle of terror would never truly end. And his own discontent remained almost purely inflexible much the same; it would not end while this reality remained so harshly true of the world they lived in. Perhaps what bothered him was all the other people that weren't as lucky. But he wouldn't show it.

"It doesn't matter any longer," Fenris said to her in a fit of rancor one night. Rather bitterness was reserved in his tone than anger.

"And how did you feel," she asked cruelly, once having lost her temper, "now that it seems you have chosen to make up a free living, but you still barely exist deliberately shut up in the oak, never to be of the world, but delve in it just the same all with the taste of misery and plaintiveness even in places where there is no room for such?"

Fenris looked straight ahead as if he couldn't give her a decent answer to this. Then his eyes fixed on her and he replied with sudden composure, "You have corrupted me as I told you."

"Ah," she muttered, "so you are afraid." Her eyes tightened, but her voice remained calm. "The promise of a safer home in this very house couldn't comfort you. An honest living through work of your own choice couldn't comfort you. The promise of unconditional companionship even so couldn't comfort you. The existing or invented gods couldn't begin comfort you." She flung out her arms and calmly finished, "And I was to blame."

"Not afraid," Fenris said furiously, clenching his teeth. "Corrupted, as I said." He flashed his sharp green eyes on her.

"Your vision is corrupted, might I correct you," she protested. "You're lying to yourself so you cannot allow yourself to enjoy the things you've already begun to show you do." She shook her head. "Would that I could get you rid of this mask." She shook her head again and her eyes tightened. She brought her hands together in front of her face and stared away in black. "I ran and ran, I had no home for a good half of all my life and I'd been banished from the only one I knew just the same. But the skies are my witness that I didn't flinch for a second and thought it was meaningless. Even if it was, I got back up on my feet each time without questioning."

"You did," Fenris said flatly, perhaps not wishing to continue because he wasn't ready to get surpassed by her statement. Or perhaps because there lay in him a wish for her to share that story. She didn't. In turn, she exhaled bitterly, reminding herself of those awful memories and trying to push them back.

"Perhaps it doesn't matter," Hawke said finally. "But in one respect it very much does. That you've always had the will to go on, no matter the circumstances. It matters little of your reasons behind this strength. You wished to survive for yourself, I wished to survive in that I could ensure others did with me." She gestured towards him and leaned back in the chair. "Now, you say I'd corrupted you."

"I did," Fenris said in such annoyingly elusive manner, she felt as if she was talking to her father when she demanded truths of him he didn't want to share.

Furious and bitter, she didn't even know what point she was striving to make. She let herself enveloped in memories she resolved to banish quickly, but the feeling remained. With that she let herself mutter quietly, "Do you know what it means to believe absolutely nothing, even so, to have no god, no truth?" He knew it was rhetorical, but he still replied.

"Yes, of course I know," Fenris answered calmly and leaned back in his chair. "I believe nothing. I consider it wise. I believed nothing when I was a slave. I believe nothing now."

He was right to say this, but not entirely. For the slave part, making it appear as if he was still devoid of willingness and desire, it struck in her a fierce sentiment of wanting to slap him, even if this was not what he had meant by it. She might have said more brutal things, but she saw him mean to go on. Staring forward in the same ghostly manner with his hands entangled in front of his face, he said, "We don't know how to live as anything else. We've never tried. We shy away from the heavy world, except when we fight. There we think most clearly and our power is obvious." He let his hands fall. He fixed his eyes on her and his eyes became alight with something. "We fear discovery." It had calmed her down, suffice it to say, for he was pertaining to both their predicaments and he had put it very well.

Staring at this room now, she was struck by a curious sentiment. She felt good to see a little change, but she felt exasperated all of a sudden, that he might never truly change. Even if it felt like she was in the heartland of fairies and woodland mythical creatures when she saw Fenris deliberately partaking into a social gathering with making  _pie._

She found herself coming back to the room on the first floor where he was struggling in his contained irritation to make that pie. Clutching to the door opening, she said, "Mother's asking for you. I think you should go. I don't meant to doubt your incredible baking skills, but it's Varric's name day. Would that it was mine, I'd probably not mind to be a little poisoned, but-"

She saw a short air of contained relief across his face, so she paused and smiled. He nodded briefly and gathered all his things in silence. When they came out of the house, she took the wrong way.

"Are you going to pray that I won't poison you this evening?" Fenris asked while frowning at her for going in the direction of the Chantry courtyard.

"Maybe I'm going for a confession that I've already poisoned your wine in return," Hawke said with a playful grin.

Fenris chuckled briefly and took off for her house as he let slip, "I'll be drinking cider, thank you."

"And I'm still eating your pie," Hawke muttered to herself.

He heard from a distance and heightened his voice as he said, "I am content that you trust me."

"I know you have my best interest at heart," Hawke shouted back and took off for Lowtown. She muttered to herself, "Damn it, Hawke, you signed your funeral."

* * *

**Half an hour later, Fenris's Mansion**

"Are you sure he lives here?" Anders asked with a not very contained expression of discomfort as he looked around. "I think I just saw two cockroaches throwing up."

"Yeah, from the acid in their stomachs, having nothing to eat since this place is all clean and empty," Hawke retorted, shooting Anders a sharp look.

"It doesn't work that way," Anders replied.

"Have any more knowledge to share on that, Witch Doctor of the Cockroaches?" Hawke asked in irritation.

"Why me?" Anders asked and crossed his arms. "Let me guess. Because no one else was free this morning."

Hawke sighed and pressed her lips. "Varric can't know, I can't find Isabela, Aveline refused me."

"And you think Merrill is going to turn this into Dalish Wonderland?" Anders asked in amusement.

"You're the lesser of two evils," Hawke said with a shrug. "Plus, you've got some taste."

"And how do you know that?" Anders asked with a risen eyebrow.

"You dressed up nicely for Satinalia," Hawke said flatly, then shook her hand towards him. "Plus, you've got that whole thing going on with your hair."

"I have a lousy ponytail…" Anders muttered.

"My mistake, I meant your whole persona," Hawke said in amusement. "And you owe me, Winifred. This is justice for, well… going Justice on me."

"Again, I'm sorry for the outburst," Anders said with a sigh and quite an edge to his tone. "I'm trying you know, to keep him settled."

"Oh, this is you trying?" Hawke asked and crossed her arms. "I'd call it defensive ignorance with a just a hint of trying when it's already almost too late."

"Are we talking about Justice or your magic now?" Anders asked with an evil smirk. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You know I'm right on that one."

"That seems fairly just," Hawke said calmly.

"Stop it with the puns," Anders retorted in annoyance.

"Well that's seems unfair," she said nonchalantly.

A little scowl came upon his face as he directed his Pointy Finger of Redundant Judgement at her. "If you don't cease with the puns, I'll start being genuinely mean and you really don't want that."

Hawke snorted and remained calm as she said, "Well to me that seems like quite the righteous retribution."

"You're on then," Anders muttered back.

Hawke laughed. "Justice is blind after all."

"Sadly, he's not deaf," he said grumpily.

"Well that's a fair and balanced way to right the wrongs and honourably compensate," she said in-between despicable smiles.

Anders rolled his eyes at her. "Andraste's whiskerdoodles."

"Yeah, I don't have anything on that," Hawke said innocently.

Anders flung an arm out to the sky. "Thank the Maker."

"Now that's unfair. Who says he's to thank for? Where's that written?" Hawke asked in pretend-outrage.

"I agree," Anders said. "Now either shut up or tell me what it is you want me to do."

"Well that seems within reas- …alright, alright, I'll stop… more because I'm in a dark lonely mansion and very close to a cellar I don't want to get locked in if your spirit friend loses his temper again on me."

"I'm happy to see you be so reasonable for once," Anders said. "Mind telling me what your crazy mind is up to now?"

Hawke grinned evilly. "Well… it can't be called a progressive dinner without having the actual progressive in it now, can it?"

Anders frowned and appeared to have only partly got what she meant. He didn't get time to decipher her plan, because Hawke stepped towards him with a fiercely resolute face that made him pace back a few steps as she said, "And I hope this goes without saying and if it's not clear then may the Maker have mercy upon both of you because I sure will not –you, dear Witch Doctor, were never here." She waved in a dismissive gesture. "Whatever. Neither of you."

* * *

**Soon to be Evening, Hawke's Estate**

When Hawke arrived in the hallway, she could see Leandra arranging the silver plates on the table now adorned with a fine dark red silken cover and little candles around small ornamental flowers of white, blue and violet. Isabela and Merrill had already been seated at the table exchanging glances because Isabela was trying not to play with the cutlery in front of her mother. Merrill had apparently been corrupted, because she ditched the dark green robes for a still green, but never the less, normal shirt with black buttons and what could Hawke guess where black pants under the table. Isabela in turn ditched the old dress and all the studs for a white blouse with little white lace embroderies on the longsleeves, not very indescent at all actually, and dark red pants. Goodie.. Leandra was already wearing a light blue silk shirt and matching long skirt with white pearls around her neck. Anders had gone back to change. If he came back in yellow they wouldn't be far from making up all the colors of the rainbow.

"There you are," came Aveline's voice from behind her. She had just come in after her.

"Hey, oh… well hello Guard Captain," Hawke said in an alluring voice as she sized her up.

But whatever little compliment that was about to escape her lips was cut off by Aveline becoming pale and her expression quickly shifting to the historical designs of a particular scorn. "You've got to be kidding me," Aveline said angrily while appearing to look past her.

As Hawke turned around, the object of Aveline's particular scorn had become clear. And why the scorn seemed to be tripled up in a flash of a second. Isabela was standing in the hallway with the same despicable look. She and Aveline… somehow had the same white blouse – a blouse which seemed much too decent for Isabela and in turn, way too fancy for Aveline's arguably non-existing closet. As the women kept shooting murderous glances at each other through Hawke –and she could swear she felt the sharp blades darting through her as they did – she smiled very crookedly and said, "You… both look…"

"Of all the blouses in the world, how in the Void did you manage to get the same one I did? Wait, what am I saying? How did you even get to wear something that doesn't have metal or dull in it?" Isabela asked while crossing her arms.

"How did  _you_ manage to wear something that doesn't cleave all the way down to your bellybutton?" Aveline asked sharply.

"Well, seems to me we both enjoy wearing something fancy when we're off work," Isabela said.

"Well you do work on commission," Aveline said subtly. "Good to see you stepping up the ladder from Lowtown to Hightown tramp."

"Poor blouse," Isabela said nonchalantly. "All suffocating from your man arms."

"At least my muscles stay up in place," Aveline stung back calmly.

"Alright ladies, enough friendly fire," Hawke intervened with palms raised towards each of them. "Well, more friendly, less fire anyway. Go on, off you go."

This was going to be a nightmare without her even causing it this time. She was comforted by the thought that at least she wasn't going to be alone in the poorly dressed for the occasion domain as long as Fenris was around. And where in blazes was he anyway?

But that question became evermore powered by the "blazes" in it. And she who had been advancing towards the upper floor saw him suddenly and came to a halt. She looked at him only for a second and resumed to her walking, but then her eyes widened and she looked again –stared more like it –when the whole image came alarming and blazing in the sanctum of her reason. She stopped and checked her eyes twice as he came to her, because she could swear he was wearing a white shirt with the collars out, with some leaf necklace around his neck and a black girdle tied neatly by a belt. H wore a deep black frock coat over it, not at all flamboyant, rather just simple and elegant. And shoes, he was wearing shoes.

"Fenris..." she drawled. She forgot where she was. Did she forget to do the napkins? Where was that vintage bottle of Perrier-Jouët- _something_? … Where did – Maker, he was stunning. Not in an extravagant or garish way, but it caught the eye either way. The simple fact of it was utterly arresting. He looked like a comely, patient creature and his green eyes and white hair seemed even brighter now together with the simplicity of the black frock and white shirt. And just to make the idea cease in anyone's head that this was some perfectly elegant attire, there came the dark leaf chain to take it away. He was never one to dress up, and he was never one to look like some young lord. Fenris was comely and somewhat in a way elegant by nature, and he appeared so from the way he spoke, well-mannered and tactful, and from his calm, peaceful demeanour either when fighting or simply walking about. But nothing of what he wore ever screamed these things, in fact they did quite the opposite. He was to be feared and to be avoided, his clothes said. The fact that he didn't cover his markings rested the case even more. And it did him good, to appear so dark and unconquerable, cold and downright dangerous-looking. But in his new attire that invincible mask of warfare was almost completely struck away. It coated him in simple handsomeness. It gave him the air of fine, somewhat baffling masculinity he inevitably had, but was too hazed out by all his other attributes that attuned to his dominance. The only thing to give him away was the faint traces of his markings on his hands. But never mind those. They were hardly noticeable considering everything else.

His face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue next to the flames, except for two brilliant green eyes that now seemed very much alight. You could say they burned with incandescence like glass in the flicker of the lights. Perhaps it was because of the raw black and white on him, as opposed to his quickly withering, ever greying armour that gave the impression that he was covered in the dust of his own melancholy. Only a slight wrinkling of the tender flesh around his eyes betrayed his age. He was fine of build and proportion and that clear-cut slimness of the coat gave him a sharp, sensual angularity. There was something indeed elegant about him, distinguished by his grace and the imperturbable calm of his face. Never mind the attire. But he did what any arguably self-respecting man that spent hours covered in flour and the smell of utter exasperation could do – he yielded at her mother's expectable insistency to dress up. But he didn't seem to feel vexed with his current state. No, he was displaying choice. Instead of concealed irritation, she spotted a tracery of a contained little pride. But there was no kind of relentless vanity across the lids of his eyes, the smooth rise of his forehead, no. Those green eyes burned with a silent tranquillity that seemed devoid of any self-importance. Rather an awful humbleness, entirely barren – however ironically in his attire – of some vanity that said, "See what I am!"

And there seemed nothing despondent about him; even his handsome features and white hair became the attributes of some kind of terrible angel who shared with the rest of the world only a superficial resemblance. The coat was a mirage. And though she felt drawn to him in this perplexing outfit, it succeeded to shatter away any conception that she liked him for his looks, be them elfish, warrior-like, handsome or at present, also elegant. She was simply drawn to the earnestness and power of will that his soul exuded in the outer world for her to catch, more than any other creature. And even more, she saw beyond this very effigy of composure. She saw him smile, she saw him laugh, once almost to tears although it was at her and not with her, and she felt his warmth and his remarkable passion. She witnessed moments when he seemed perfectly happy. This was the man who broke into laughter at her joke about wondering how giraffes threw up when everyone else just looked at her strangely. And remembering all of that, it suddenly felt like the most eloquent of gestures to wrap herself around him and tell him he was handsome. It felt natural that she should do this. She tried to hold that thought for later and regain her wits for now.

But she felt her spirit contract in shock and question, and in longing. She saw him, saw his extraordinary aura and yet again she was reminded that Fenris was a creature more different than anyone she'd ever known. And yet again she was reduced to nothing. That ego of the warrior which could not accept the presence of a powerful and entrancing being in its midst was crushed. All her conceptions, even the guilt in her stomach and the faces that haunted her from the past, seemed utterly unimportant. She completely forgot herself!

And somewhere down that chain of thought, it occurred to her that maybe this was a good time to stop staring at him.

"Hawke," he said flatly, his green eyes sharp and focused, his mouth lengthening in a faint cunning smile.

"Holy Hell…" she said out loud without intention.

His eyes fixed on her for a second, then he shrugged in nonchalance and coldly said, "More or less."

"I…"

"You…?"

"I… seem… seem to have lost my train of thought," she said and quickly pointed behind him. "Oh there it is, upstairs, yes. I should go catch it… right… right now."

As soon as she walked past him with a powerful urgency, his voice stopped her in place. Bah, his stupid deep enchanting voice. "Hawke," he said.

"I'll be down in a … in a minute, don't wait on me!" she drawled cheerfully and took off again.

"Haven't you… forgotten something?" Fenris asked calmly.

She turned around and almost stumbled on her feet. He came closer and it finally dawned on her that everyone else was gone in some other room, damn him to hell. She rubbed the back of her arms and asked, "What would that be?"

"Nothing comes to mind, Hawke?" Fenris asked while containing his smile.

"Nothing  _is_ my mi- … I mean," she drawled and pressed her eyes to concentrate, then regained her wits. "No, nothing comes to mind." Alright, it could be argued what it meant for her to regain one's wits at the moment.

"Are you certain?" he asked. A most alluring grin came upon his face as he finally stopped in front of her. What was he doing? Her eyes simply remained fixed on him for a few seconds too many and she still couldn't find one lonely thought wandering ineptly in the ancient and forgotten sanctuary that was now her mind. His voice came back to snap her into reality, "Nothing… seems unordinary to you?"

"No, nothing, nothing at all," Hawke said quickly and she glanced over the room. "The table is done, dinner is almost ready, I made sure we have all variety of liquor and the napkins are fine. Well, if half-dying swans with their necks snapped counts as fine, that is."

"And there's nothing missing?" Fenris asked calmly. He mused, his right fingers slightly curled beneath his chin, the first finger appearing to lightly stroke it. "No one…?"

"No, everybody's…  _oh…_ _ **oh**_... **OH** ," she said. Her eyes widened and she felt like a thunder rolled up above her head and right into that ancient catacomb filled with dusty cobwebs that was her mind. She put her hands in her head. "I FORGOT VARRIC!"

* * *

**After she got Varric, Back at Hawke's Estate**

"Holy Mother of F-  _Fabulous_ Cheeses," Varric exclaimed as he saw the room and everyone in it, including Leandra and her cunning smile that said there was no need to refrain from his general cursing.

"Smooth," Hawke whispered down to him. "I thought I'd blind fold you and make you think you were kidnapped by the Coterie to take my revenge on your  _own_  big idea for my name day but," she paused and grinned proudly, "how fortunate that I am not aswicked and immoral."

"Which is cocky talk for 'I wanted to but they didn't let me'," Varric said confidently while winking at her.

"Yep," Hawke said and pressed her lips childishly.

Varric came amused and smiling at everyone. He wore a red shirt with a black coat and dark gloves. Only a bigass ring and a cigar was missing. "Look at you all, you're… Andraste's ass-  _astonishing_ effigy…" He looked at Fenris and snorted. "Or should I say astonishing elfigy?"

Fenris rolled his eyes and shook his head. "That is the poorest pun you've ever made, Varric."

"Interesting," Varric said sweetly. "You sound just as arrogant and grouchy in pretentious clothes as you do in your old ugly armour." He grinned widely. "I wonder what that tells us."

Fenris smirked shortly and crossed his arms as he mused back, "That I certainly look good in everything."

"T-yeah you-" Hawke muttered but paused quickly as everyone was looking at her. "Wow is that a swallow nest on the ceiling?" She took off to the upper level as she shouted a bit too loudly, "Told you I'd find a use for those projectile sprouts!"

The others sat down and dived right into the orange duck thing with rosemary sauce. Leandra suggested women sat down on one side of the table and men on the other, with Varric at the head of the table of course. It wasn't long before Anders showed up too and yet again, another fancy freakshow of nature was born. He wore a dark blue cravat shirt and he kept his hair up more neatly like a genuine aristocrat. No one would have guessed he was the poor apostate from Darktown running the shady clinic with the lit lantern.

"What the…" Varric exclaimed. "Where'd you get that kind of money, Blondie?"

"I'm not entirely poor, Varric," Anders said.

"Well, you're not entirely loaded for that shirt either, Monserre Beaufort," Varric said in amusement. He looked at Leandra and asked innocently, "Did I get that right?"

"That would be Monsieur, but it sounded more charming the way you said it," Leandra said between chuckles. "Please Anders, take a seat."

He took a seat. Oh yes, he did. The only one left on the men's side. The last seat next to the last person he would have wanted to be near. From the cold glances and awkward coughing masking away the heavy vault of loathing, the feeling was entirely mutual.

"So…" Varric started all-grinning. "Did the Senechal pay you another one of those private visits by any chance?" Anders frowned. Fenris snorted. Anders redirected his frown. Varric was most amused. "Emphasis on the  _pay_?"

This was the most difficult setting for everyone to expressly state their irritated opinions to one another, which for Varric was a great chance to see how tactful they could be at converting all the mean or graphic words –that usually escaped their lips with the vastest most uncensored urgency – into courteous passive aggressive lines of nonchalance. Oh, is this what Orlais was like, Varric wondered. If it was, he would like it. For a day or two. Not with Hawke around. She'd set the royal palace on fire if she could. He sighed within and wondered what was taking her so long.

"Anders, I have to ask," Leandra started suddenly. "How is the training going? I couldn't get a word out of her."

"That seems strongly open for interpretation," Varric said in amusement. "Is the student giving the teacher a hard time or is it the other way around?"

Anders shook his head and sighed. That was hardly open for interpretation. "It's going rather well," he said vaguely.

"Whatever she says or shows, don't buy it," Leandra said in amusement. "She is excellent, even if a battalion of angry berserkers wouldn't bring her to show it."

"Oh she is, and yes, she worked hard on not showing it," Anders said with a bit of edge to his tone. "Maker knows she can turn any great master into looking like a fool to get her way."

"She had a good teacher," Leandra said with a smile. "Like father, like daughter."

"There are some branches even I don't master quite as well," Anders said. "Maker knows I su-  _sulk_ at the thought that I'm rather bad in entropy."

"How come?" Merrill asked in confusion. "It's not some ancient sorcery. I mean, it is, but," she drawled. "There's not much to it short of directing a spell towards the other's brain."

"I'm not very good with manipulation of the nervous system," Anders said. "I'm more of a –"

Fenris snorted quietly. Anders gave him a grouchy look and asked, "Is there something you want to share, Fenris?"

He tried not to laugh, so he coughed shortly and resumed with a contained smile as he took his glass up, "Oh no, pay me no need." He took a sip and added, "I wouldn't want to upset your nervous system."

Anders's eyes tightened towards him as he said, "Can you  _spell_ it out for me then?"

"I can," Fenris said flatly and took another sip. "But I do not wish to."

"So… back to Hawke," Varric intervened. "By the way, where is she?"

"I made her change out of those awful town clothes," Leandra said happily.

"Good call, Mrs Hawke," Isabela said all-smiling. "I had to kick her bag in the bath tub to put on a dress."

"How very predictably controlling of you," Aveline said grumpily while eating. What she meant was evil and conniving, but of course, this was converted inside language.

"Well, you know it can get rather boringsometimes, no matter if it's Antiva or Kirkwall," Isabela said nonchalantly. Of course that was code for Aveline being boring.

"Please, call me Leandra," she said. "Mrs Hawke makes me sound old, even if it's undeniably true."

"For shame that you would say that, my lady!" Varric exclaimed charmingly. He raised his glass of pretentious Orlesian wine. "And even if you think so," he paused and gestured at the glass, "I always say women age like fine wine, just as much in wisdom as they do in beauty."

"Do you say that to all the ancient broads you haggle with, Varric?" Leandra asked in amusement. He was about to quickly save it, but she never ceased to surprise everybody with her open-mindedness. "Because if you do, keep it going. You're doing excellent at flattering."

"That's because I never say anything if I don't mean it," Varric said proudly and raised his glass again. "To you, Leandra! The most beautiful noble woman in Kirkwall  _by far_!"

"Oh, well I won't argue with that," Leandra said in pretend-arrogance and drank away as everyone did. Or perhaps she agreed that at least in Kirkwall, this could easily be so. Fenris was always amused when she did that. Despite the colossal differences that separated her and Hawke, there was so much of her mother in her if one looked and listened closely. They were both strong of will and modest at heart, and in so they would always look charming when they joked around in pretended self-importance, the kind that they would never truly allow themselves to have. And no matter how much subtle importance they gave to Malcolm Hawke for the upkeep and protection of their family, Hawke and her mother had probably both done their share of good work in the same domain. As she said, battalions of angry berserkers could never take them down when they set a goal in mind.

"Speaking of, have you heard one of the Countess's daughters was thrown in prison the other night?" Varric asked Leandra.

"Babette… yes," Leandra said with a sigh. "I saw her going at her hearing when I went by the Keep to drop off the second petition my darling daughter issued against the Viscount."

"What did she do? Babette I mean?" Varric asked eagerly. "Did she, pardon my Orlesian, take a leak on the Keep's walls while drunk aga-"

" _Second_ petition?" Fenris quickly interrupted with an edge to his voice.

"Yes," Leandra said with a sigh, then looked at Fenris, "And yes."

"May I ask in regards to what?" Fenris pressed calmly.

Leandra rolled her eyes and smiled. "To take down the iron spikes in Lowtown. She had signatures and all, spent two days going from door to door to get them." She chuckled and shook her head and fixed her eyes on Varric and Fenris next to him at the edge of the table. "Remember that little Ferelden boy who used to work for that evil smuggler? The one she and you two chipped in to send him back home all those years ago?"

"Of course," Varric said confidently. "Best five sovereigns I've ever given while I was already tight on money."

"He sent her a letter telling her he was taken in by a nice noble lady to work the farm and fields," Leandra said. "She had the nice lady edit his written testimony that he and his little sister fell on those spikes and were almost injured to death."

"Holy sh- _enanigans,_  is that even admissible?" Varric asked with a raised eyebrow.

"In front of the court? Yes," Aveline intervened. "Getting it there through a magistrate that actually cares is the tricky part. Having noble roots… does help."

"And saving the Viscount's son," Varric added proudly. Fenris gave him a sharp look. He didn't get it.

"Isn't it dangerous to get involved in human politics though?" Merrill asked in alarm. "I mean considering –"

"Not if she keeps an impeccable image," Anders said. "Which is… arguably not that impeccable, right?"

"For shame," Varric intervened confidently. "She's helped the city more than –" He stopped because he was looking at Aveline and she gave him a murderous look that warned him to watch what he was going to say next. "… ahem, the other nobles ever have."

"Regardless, all it takes is one slip," Fenris said sharply and looked at Varric again with insistence. "Of the tongue that is."

"That grumpy old magistrate has no idea, elf," Varric said with an edge to his tone.

"Magistrate?" Leandra asked in alarm. She sighed and asked, "What did she do this time?"

"Oh nothing…" Varric said while awkwardly scratching the back of his head. "Suffice is to say she did Kirkwall a huge favor."

"We killed his possessed…psychotic… mage son," Fenris cut him a bit angrily. Anders snorted mockingly, but Fenris completely ignored him and continued, "In good reason of course, he was a fugitive prisoner and a rapist." He looked back sharply at Varric. "But that's enough for his father to oppose any of Hawke's noble attempts to battle the system."

"Have a little faith, Fenris," Anders intervened with an all-knowing grin. "Hawke does and she seems to be alive and well. But I'm sure her strong compassion is something rather difficult for you to understand."

"I understand compassion just fine, ma-  _Anders_ ," Fenris said while tightening his eyes on him. "But open assaults however compassionate go hand in hand with drawing needless attention and inevitable danger."

"And when she's Viscount you'll be taking that statement and shove it up your… arsenal of futile reasons to lay low and look the other way, like most of the world does," Anders said confidently and took a sip of pride. Of course that was code for being remarkably inconsiderate given his predicament.

But Fenris didn't even care to get his subtleties. He was too busy yielding at his resistance to contain his awful scowl at Anders's latest overly absurd statement. He remained speechless for a second with his angry glance. Then he looked away and said, "Preposterous."

"A mage on the throne?" Anders said nonchalantly and drank away. "You'd be surprised how many got away with it. She wouldn't be the first and she certainly won't be the last."

"No," Fenris said sharply and put his glass down on the table.

"No?" Anders asked all-grinning.

"No as in it's preposterous to think Hawke would ever strive for such things," Fenris replied decisively. He didn't even think it in the way of Tevinter ruling.

"Seconded," Aveline said calmly.

"Third…-ed," Varric added just as calmly.

Leandra had already excused herself in the meantime to check on the lamb shanks, so Isabela intervened, "Really?" She shook her head grinning to no end. "You think she wouldn't take the chance if there was no other way to save all the," she paused and turned her tone to mockery while gesturing to the sky, "all the poor, all the oppressed and all the utterly damned?"

"And in what fantastical world would it be that there was no chance to save the needy other than  _Hawke_  becoming some kind of political ruler?" Fenris asked with an edge.

"The world is full of wonders, Fenris," Anders said in calm mockery. "I know I'd certainly take it if it meant saving innocents."

"Oh, shut up, mage," Fenris said cuttingly. "The only reason  _you_  would do it is to save your precious oppressed mages from the Circle. Your reasons are not noble."

"And aren't those people innocent too?" Anders asked, taking sips of happy nonchalance.

"How remarkably logical of you to point out," Fenris said sarcastically and took a sip of wine. "Sadly, they're the only ones who are innocent in your eyes." He put the glass down decisively and fixed his eyes on him. "Which makes your reasons in fact selfish –precisely because you put such stock in the selection of those you want to save." Then he paused to raise a mocking eyebrow. "Justice is not so blind with you, is it?"

"Justice may not be, but you two are," Varric said grumpily and looked straight up ahead. "I bet 'Hawke to the rescue' is awfully redundant at this point."

Fenris shook his head and drank away again. "I don't know about redundant, but it is certainly annoying."

"It really is, isn't it?" came a voice from behind.

"It really is," Fenris said nonchalantly and resolved to take another sip, without realizing whose voice that was. It took another moment to find that one lost thought and he finally looked behind his shoulder, only to end up choking on his wine.

She was dark  _and_ bright at the same time. Standing proud with an elusive smile and looking up at her, she seemed majestically tall and all but enshrined by a voluminous mane of bloody red hair. She wore a black coat with numerous silver buttons that somehow went tighter around the waist and wider down below. It went longer at the back and she wore it open, over a very deep and dark purple satin shirt enclosing at the neck with no collars. It was the first time that he saw Hawke wear a shirt stuffed in her pants. And the dark pants were distinctly tight, revealing the true shape of her strong thighs. Her hips were not visible, but the waist-tight coat going wider thereafter gave her a very attractive angularity. She seemed lost, divorced from reality in all her content. Or maybe that was him. But nothing seemed to have touched her perfect face, which gazed into the light now, as beautiful and finely chiselled as the face of some marble virgin, that hair her haloed veil and those red lips as tempting as ever, but not really polished in some vulgar manner. "Holy Hell," as she said earlier that evening, seemed to make all the sense in the world now. And even so, the most apparently important part for his extremely disobedient brain and wayward eyes turned out to be the flawless outlined the shirt made of her very big and honest soul, as she once said. The deep and eye-catching color of her shirt didn't make it any less arresting, nor did the flashy contrast that it made with her red hair that she wore loose and was cascading down that big and round chest of hers. No, they arrested him alright. Yes, the object _s_  of his attention were enthralling and wicked and to the limit of his understanding, they were cruelly and mercilessly staring at him.

This was worse than a pretty dress.

"If you're going to die in my house, could you at least wait until desert so we could clean all the mess at once?" Hawke asked in amusement at his sudden choking. Sadly, it didn't quite snap him out of his trance until Varric's voice came loud, "He-he-hey, look at the money maker on you, Chuckles." However ironically that the dwarf spoke arguably the same thoughts he tried to keep as hidden as possible, he finally woke up, standing. For no reason. He sat down again quickly and remained calm; at least that's what he was telling himself.

"Oh great, here come the boob jokes," Hawke said and rolled her eyes. "What's next?" She flung her arms forward as she mused, "I must be hunting for treasure, 'cause I'm diggin' your chest?"

Varric snorted and remained all smiles. "I suppose it's a little inappropriate to make the redhead boob joke."

"They're divided by hair color too?" Hawke asked in pretend-amazement. "My, let's hear it."

"There are at least three people in this room who will probably frown big time," Varric said again, all smiles. They all looked at him in silence. He sighed and leaned back in the chair. "Well if you insist… What do you call a redhead with big breasts?"

She lifted her eyebrows and crossed her arms, everyone else waited for his answer. Varric was apparently trying not to snort awkwardly as he said, "An abomination."

To Varric's surprise, Hawke broke into laughter. "I thought you were going to say it was that drunken dwarf, Oghren, but that one's good too."

"Wow, I didn't even think of that," Varric said while staring blankly. "Good thinking, Chuckles, I'll remember that."

"So… Mother thought it would be fun to divide us by gender," Hawke said and took the empty seat Varric saved for her. "How incredibly sexist of her."

"If that were true, then Aveline would be sitting there and Anders would be sitting here," Isabela mused stingingly.

"And if we were divided by the predictability of cheap shots, you'd be sitting all alone on one side," Anders fired back.

"Oh you don't even have to go there. Cheap in itself is just as perfect for a criteria," Aveline said sharply.

"Quick, tell another boob joke before this duck catches on fire from all the tension," Hawke said to Varric.

"Oh, uh… well… Andraste's tits, nothing comes to mind," Varric said sweetly.

"Your puns may sound funny in your head, Varric, but once they escape your mouth, it's just sad," Fenris uttered crossly.

"Shut it, Ser Pretentious Van Der Arrogantus  _The Third_ ," Varric said confidently. "It's my day and I decide what's funny."

"Hey, I just thought of one," Hawke intervened happily. "The elephant asks the camel one day –"

"How can an elephant hailing from Seheron be put together with a camel that could only reside way farther in the Anderfels?" Fenris cut her.

Hawke pressed her lips in annoyance and looked at Varric. "You forgot to add his middle name, Wiseassus."

"Sorry, I'm still wondering how that was his first question instead of 'How can an elephant even talk?'" Varric said while grinning.

"Touché," Fenris muttered coldly, then gestured to Hawke. "Continue."

"So the elephant asks the camel – 'Why are your breasts on your back?'" Hawke started eagerly and gestured everything. "And the camel says –'Well… I think that's a strange question from somebody whose wiener is on his face.'"

Fenris was the first to break into laughter, because he enjoyed her childish animal jokes by far; and he suspected she already knew that. That train of hidden mutual thoughts did not however help the others in questioning either why Fenris of all people found it funny or how he was even able to laugh.

"Just to make Broody or well, now Lord Broodsworthy even grumpier," Varric started after he finished laughing. "Hawke," he said all-grinning and raised his glass. "To my breast friend in the world."

"Oh, I love you with all my boobs, Varric," Hawke said to join the annoying battalion of puns against Fenris. "I'd have said with all my heart, but my boobs are bigger."

"How charming," Fenris commented calmly with his hand under his chin. "You two are like the plover bird and the crocodile, forming the most disturbing pair of symbiotic friends in all the animal kingdom."

"Now that's an interesting image," Hawke said. "Wait… who's the bird and who's the crocodile?"

Fenris smirked all-knowingly with his eyes fixed on her. "Well… who has the bigger mouth from the two of you?"

"That's easy, it's…wait…" Hawke said and looked at Varric. "That's actually hard to say."

"Plus I'm shorter and therefore smaller than you, Missy," Varric said with a cunning grin. "And thusly whatever sound escapes my mouth is doth much quieter than yours."

Hawke snorted and remained calm. "You know it's the real deal when he starts using 'thusly'."

"Yep, as the Maker is my witness," Varric said in amusement.

"Leave the Maker alone, I'm doing quite the thorough witnessing right here," Isabela mused playfully while looking down at Hawke.

"I think I can hear them crying all the way from here," Anders said while chuckling.

"Avert your eyes … and ears," Hawke protested calmly. "They're kind of like the sun. Alright to look at, dangerous to stare."

"Yeah, imagination is much better in this case," Varric said all-smiling.

"And your imagination," Hawke pressed all-smiling at him too. "All means either physical, mental, magical, spiritual – well, you get it. Now let's drink."

"As you wish," Varric said with a shrug. He then lowered his gaze and became serious for a moment. "I know this day is about me, but," he tried to say, then quickly paused and went pale. "Oh, Leandra! Good that you came back, your timing was perfect _._ "  _Considering I was about to use that classic flattery of mine for yet another punchline about your daughter's chest and not quite so classily now that I think about it,_ Varric thought. He raised his glass again and made everyone mirror his gesture. "As I was saying, I know this day is about me, but the fact that you were so thoughtful as to throw me a dinner party obliges me to thank you to eternity. I really feel special now," he said sweetly and pointed at Leandra and Hawke. "Thank you both for taking the time –"

"Yeah, yeah, less thanking, more drinking," Hawke cut him childishly and rushed them all to bump their glasses together.

 


	45. Varric's Birthday II: Crazy In Control

Unbeknownst to many, there was a war between Varric and Isabela. They had went through endless debates over Hawke's psychology and deciphering her mind games. Hawke was a calculated metaphorically evil demonspawn from the Void that foresaw almost everyone's moves and read people like an open book. Of course, for two people who were skilled in the same domain and consequently were stamped by overthinking and logical reasoning of everything, justifying all things through intellectualization rather than listening to some gut feeling… Hawke made anyone with a little brain go very paranoid in trying to interpret everything she did or said. Did she mean what she said? Did it have some hidden meaning that would unconsciously manipulate them? Did she know they would think that and simply played with their mind because they would go paranoid, in truth, what she said had no ulterior motive or meaning? And the worst part was that she had this remotely calm quality of her expression that said she knew what you were thinking before you were even thinking it. They could not exaggerate this quality in her. The fact that their minds sought to describe this quality unsettled them. She gave people the very feeling that she knew what they were doing, and her still posture and her deep hazel eyes seemed to say there was no use in what people were thinking, or particularly the words they were struggling to form. They meant nothing.

In so, Varric and Isabela spent a lot of time placing bets and battling each other with their different opinions. They had placed so many bets that they quickly lost track, and switched their beliefs so many times they felt this was exactly what Hawke wanted them to do and she was sitting somewhere drinking her tea in a calmly malevolent manner and laughing quietly like an evil maniac.

Isabela saw something, Varric didn't believe her. Yet Varric knew before she even thought of it. No one should ever doubt when he said he knew  _everything_ that one needed to know. He didn't see it, he didn't have any proof, but he knew; and when he tackled Fenris with his statement he didn't think for a second it was a long shot. Of course, Fenris said there was nothing to it and Varric, evermore the dwarven lie detector, believed that he was telling the truth. In that, whatever happened didn't matter anymore and nothing else was more to come from it. And of course, as vague and dumb as that was for Fenris to believe, he didn't press on it. It wasn't the best time to delve in feelings and have a good old manly talk about women and how they are the poison that both killed and cured the man.

But Isabela was going broke. She needed the coin and she made it her mission to prove Varric that some of the bets they placed were won by her. Therefore, she had two things to worry about. That she might have been wrong, that Varric didn't believe her and that she had to get some perfect moment to prove it. Wait, that was three. And what time was better to play with people's minds and cause trouble then at a celebration gathering? One which started very courteous and passive aggressive, forcing everyone to keep to their wits and watch how they behaved... and then resume their festivities in a more familiar open territory where people would be desperate to drink away and discharge of all the tension that had built up the first half of the evening? And what if that tension could be doubled up by an outside very much intentional force? Varric wasn't the only one who knew how to manipulate and control everything from the shadows. The only problem being... if he was already onto some evil scheme himself. And then there was Hawke, who needed at least two more bottles of liquor before she was slightly less observant and wicked herself.

Well, well... too bad she wasn't a very bright mastermind in a difficult social setting such as this dinner party, when her mother was there to make her spew fumes out of her ears and make her eyes bleed. And that also meant Hawke was to up her dose of poison with every little line that her mother muttered sweetly about her sweet little flaws. And seeing Fenris was  _not_ in a very good place either with those clothes, the tension and being annoyed by Anders every step of the way... oh, it was going to be a very good night. Isabela could hear the delicious tingle of the coins dangling in the purse she would soon receive with the most tauntingly victorious smile. It would be a very musical night.

This was the wonderland of crazy people. And the best part was that mentally disturbed evil people like themselves got to screw with each other. Ergo, this was the nectar of the gods diving from the sky with full force and a one way ticket down to Kirkwall. But the gods of trickery had to work hard at calculating their moves and fashioning their strategy, for the gods of war were also present, ranging their battalions of strength and resistance of the mind with their own veteran strategies… and their Legion Commander was still not drunk enough.

Dinner was almost over now and there would've been no more than an hour with dessert before they would take off to the Hanged Man. Hawke was cheerful and calm, which was a good sign that she was screaming and thrashing inside. Anders became really cheerful and not because of drinking. Justice didn't let him get drunk anymore, he said. Whatever that meant… And he'd took every subtle, passive aggressive opportunity to pick on Fenris. He in turn, started to become very calm and content, dejecting all of the mage's little attacks tactfully. Never mind the witty polite come backs he made, his tone alone was a hard testament, while probably false, that Anders meant nothing and all his attempts to rival him were pointless. But how could he deny a man so driven by his will to bark away all that pent up frustration? Fenris took delight in the small things, such as seeing Anders exhaust himself so consciously. And in turn, Fenris was drinking, getting dizzier and more disconnected from his problems and his own frustration with the annoying mage, so what in the world would press his buttons? Nothing.

It was hard to say who was the most disturbed person in the room, the most hauntingly screwed up, the most dangerously close to becoming a villain, the most likely one to bite the dust if their weaknesses happened to be strangled one day into blasting out in the world. Each of them were powerful and thus a ticking time bomb with a repressed appetite for destruction. However, just like everyone else in the world, each of them were still keeping it together because everyone had their own defenses, some healthy, some questionably dangerous and some just outright weird.

As far as the world could fathom, these were the outlines of this terrible group.

* * *

**\- Varric -**

Varric was a charming talkative fellow who knew his way with words, he could find the funny in anything, and his seemingly effortless and indiscriminate attitude towards the world made about just anyone instantly like him and if not right away, he would grow on them in time. He knew everything about everyone, undeniably an imperative asset for their team, but not quite as desirable as far as inside dynamics went. Nobody wanted their dirty laundry known to him. Of course, while he didn't show much interest in their naughty little secrets, this was not much about everyone as it was about him.

He had a great hidden need to control everything, know things, create things from already existing realities with his stories, and consequently he could control all his hidden fears and anxiety. It was no secret that… he kept a secret. Knowing all the secrets from the outside conveyed a lot of power, while he in turn didn't give almost any leads about the nature of his life, his past and his actual desires or his purpose in life. He created characters in the image of already existing persons and exaggerated their actions and their attitudes to his liking –he created strong and impressive figures that actively left their print on the world, something that he in turn was less likely to do as he perceived it. Through them, he repaired his faults and lack of real power. Through them, he also sublimated his desire to act out of compassion and genuine strive to help people. Outside, he really needed to be needed. There was no need for sorcery or science to guess why he enjoyed being under Hawke's wing and why he let her take her stand so actively, getting all the fingers pointed at her and in turn, her taking everybody down with no hesitation. She couldn't do it alone however.

And in part, he was frustrated that he couldn't really control her even if he genuinely wanted to. And at the moment, that little feeling was growing dangerously vast because he really did care about whatever was happening or apparently not happening. Aside from that, she was taking an active stand against politics too. He cared enough to worry silently and let her do whatever she wanted to. But his compulsion to control things was exactly what it was –compulsory. It was stamped already in the parchment of his character and his thoughts, and it didn't come as a surprise that he bribed the hell out of people to know exactly what was happening at the Keep and who knew what and who was for or against Hawke and who so much as breathed her name for the last week. He was scared shitless that something was going to go very wrong.

* * *

**\- Anders -**

Anders was a shady character who couldn't be more redundant in his predicament of having his psyche cleaved. As in, besides that problem that normal people have, he also was yet again cleaved because he had a crazy vindictive spirit inside his head too. Talk of schizophrenia… but more importantly, he seemed to be very driven and though he didn't care to hide his rancor towards his aggressors, there was a high chance this rancor was even greater and more likely to be acted upon one day. They didn't know much, except for the fact that he had escaped the Circle so many times he had lost count himself. That meant he had spent a lifelong sentence of being at the mercy of his aggressors and he had known no other life for most of his years than to learn how to slide through the cracks of authority and defy superiors as much as he could without open assaults. His mind was already attuned to survival through trickery and utmost patience within that trickery. Add an unstable spirit of justice who, just like him, was thrown into a world he didn't understand except for one great instinct – justice, along with Anders's great instinct as a mage –survival and freedom on a long shot… Well, one might think twice as to why he had taken such a noble duty to heal the needy for nothing in return. Excessive altruism might not have been some inborn trait, but a conversion in behavior to remedy guilt. And the reasons he unconsciously felt guilty could have been colossal in numbers: lying, murder at his own behest, murder at Justice's behest, getting other mages killed by his own negligence, being powerless to save people any other way, having to leave the Wardens where he actually did something useful, and the list went on.

Of course, there was also Justice who wanted to do, well, justice, but how much of that could one take to justify his actions? There were two beings inside of him, each with their own desires. One could argue that they were somehow combined, that their purposes attuned to each other and present Anders was born, but which one was really corrupting the other? He said he heard his thoughts as his own, but they were one now. That didn't make any sense. Well, most of what Anders said never made any sense, but the point was that there was still a wall that separated the two beings, and only sometimes they exchanged forces and synced with one another. Sometimes Justice took over his body and showed himself to the world and he spoke into a creepy preternatural voice, therefore the spirit didn't truly merge with Ander's soul, but simply lived inside a human vessel. Spirits were also drawn to lyrium, the substance in the outer world which was magic in its raw form and held the distinct energy of the Fade in its content. Since mages were living vessels of magic and their connection to the Fade was much stronger, Justice was without intention a genuine ripened parasite.

He came to Ferelden to watch over his friend, he said? And he spent all his days healing the needy. Why not run away from Kirkwall and do his altruistic work somewhere else now that his friend was gone? It's not as if he was tied down by some affectionate bonds. His being as a Circle mage and then an apostate instructed his mind to never catch roots anywhere. One being sought justice, the other probably also wanted penance. Rather masochistic of him to remain in the heartland of Templar country, wasn't it?

* * *

**\- Merrill -**

Merrill had been a free mage, but her only tie to the world had been her clan. Even with that, she was still different than the others and the only person to grant her safety and to properly identify with was the Keeper. Having had so much pressure put on her to train to be the next one, she felt lonely and powerless. The Keeper, while a steady parental figure, was a protector of them all and she shared her care with everyone equally. All of them were oppressed and shared the same unfair destiny and the only home they had was where their hearts were, with one another. The Keeper had more reasons to give her attention above everyone else, but any sort of little attention given to the other children meant rivalry, especially since Merrill was the different one. She needed to convert the rivalry and her feelings of loneliness and inadequacy into some higher purpose. There was no mystery there for why she welcomed any sort of peaceful, friendly presence to come to her help. Demons were just spirits. It was not their fault they were what they were and she had enough power of will not to succumb to their compulsion to possess people. Wasn't it somehow poetic? Demons were misunderstood creatures and they wanted to feel what worldly beings felt. They were chained down and cast away into another world, much like the outer world, but somehow more stripped of the things that demons needed, and there was no joy for them in the Fade. Did that make them evil? It was their nature and their ultimate need, what their being dictated to do. Merrill wanted justice for her people, cast out and misunderstood, looked upon as inferior beings and treated like mindless animals. They were unworthy of being seen as entitled to a kingdom, a home, the right to live, think and believe. It was the lost knowledge of the higher ones, the much wiser ones, the people who strived to know the world truly and ask the questions without fearing the answer; that lost knowledge was what made this present world so easy to be taken down by those who had the power to twist and control it to their liking. The Chantry took the opportunity, the humans took the opportunity, Tevinters had surely taken the opportunity.

But how could lonely helpless beings get the sudden courage to cast themselves away from the only world they knew and that could protect them? How did Merrill get to leave her clan with such fierce drive to do whatever she wanted to do? How was she to discover the lost knowledge of her heritage by living in a city full of Templars and people who treated her like dirt? The Keeper and her had disagreements, yes –she was a blood mage and through this power she could learn things. But was her clan, the only family she knew worth to be sacrificed for this higher purpose? Wasn't this insanely far-fetched ambition a means through which the child earns the respect and affection of the superior parent or authority figure who inspired this principle in the first place? It was a Keeper's job to remember and preserve. She was doing a Keeper's job in Kirkwall without the actual pressure of being responsible for a whole lot of people. Quite masochistic of her too to go to such extents to earn respect and honor from more than just a lousy little clan. She was not to be understood, she was not to be saved. The demon offered solace and a chance, a homage, a courtesy to both relieve her of loneliness and to work on her aspiration to save her people through a small little sacrifice, in that she was the sacrifice.

* * *

**\- Aveline -**

Aveline was the living example of a woman determined to stick her ground without making use of some evil womanly power, at least not in an obvious way. She was strong-willed and even stronger in battle, both neither the civilized world nor the savage vault of ill-intended people among it were enough to bring her down. She resembled the old type of Ferelden Knight that defended and protected. Her father had brought her to be independent and driven, and bestowing a name that conveyed the meaning of these attributes for some reason, didn't really make her happy smiles and rainbows about it. She hated her name, but it was not very clear why. Perhaps she didn't enjoy being put up in a box, even if that box was positive and resembled the things she freely chose to do and represent. Perhaps it created a lot of pressure on her and stripped her of the joy of choosing instead of being destined to or some other ancient sorcery she fiercely discarded to be true. She put her own dying husband to the sword and afterwards it seemed as though nothing would bring her back to her old self. Destiny made it so that she was yet again almost forced to live up to her natural drive as well as that name by arriving in Kirkwall. She had little choice but to join the Guard and again, had little choice when being made Captain. But her predicament was clear and having been instructed as a soldier to resist at any pressure helped her against diving into some path of self-destruction. Her duty came first however, and whatever whimsical desires and whiny excuses her mind made didn't have much hope to be acted upon. She had to keep a tone of dominance and more often than not, strict and aggressive, because she was a leader. She was responsible for a lot of people, her guards and consequently, all the citizens of Kirkwall, and while appearing to be overly annoyed with every abominable act of stupidity coming from either her superiors or her men, she loved what she was doing. She converted all her feelings into work and her frustrations were not felt as emotions because she intellectualized everything. Yes, Aveline surely knew how to tank her emotions with logic. But in truth, she liked having control over everything and she enjoyed taking care of other people. The only thing it was annoying about it except for having to bear Senechal Bran's pretentious risen eyebrow was the thought that she had no choice over it in the end.

* * *

**\- Isabela -**

Isabela was a direct and independent woman who more often than not, showed the reality she was trying to push back was representative of the opposite situation. She was mostly indirect and evasive, and used boldness as a move to evade even more. She used her femininity as both a sign of confidence and independence, and a way to exaggerate the power conveyed through it to deflect from the reality that she was also quite alone, helpless and damned. Her mother sold her for almost nothing without a care, she was abandoned and her husband controlled her. She was tossed from one indifferent hand to the other and it brought her only pain and she could do nothing about it until one day the Maker smiled upon her and sent an assassin at her aggressor's throat. What happened next was exciting and dangerous. In that she became exciting and dangerous. She used her power over men to get her way, instead of letting herself screwed around with by them. She stripped herself of the conscious ability to care for others and she abandoned them first so she would never have to know anguish again with being abandoned like she had been by her mother. She didn't have feelings for people and she considered no one a friend, she trusted nobody.

She was bisexual and her usual conquests were women instead of men. If she wanted to punish herself, she would have gone for men who were much more likely to try and rape, steal or kill her. Men were also easy. Women were harder to crack and surpass, much like she was, and it gave her the pleasure of the hunt and the conquest. That gave her control, that gave her power, that gave her assurance. She became the assaultive one and she needed to be in control of her own fate, like she was in control of her ship and her crew. She worked as a mercenary doing the dirty work of evil and cruel people, resolving that she only served as the means and not the intention. She wasn't to blame for the shit in the world and what mattered was to protect yourself, ensure your own fortune and give a damn about nothing else. Hawke gave that appearance too, but Isabela knew there was a burnt little saint within Hawke that couldn't help but make her dive into danger for other reasons that her own fortune. And that danger that haunted her at every turn was so pointlessly drawn that it made Isabela feel pity on her. After all, once Isabela let herself slip with acting on her kindness, it stamped her destiny with havoc and nightmares, the one she was in right now.

* * *

Of course, Fenris and Hawke were probably the most disturbed persons of them all and perhaps the most likely to harrow hell and havoc upon the world if their weaknesses were taunted. Both of them could cycle easily from compassion to cruelty, from utter calmness to raging anger. One second they could be unreserved angels, the next they could turn into the most terrifying devil. Funny and ironic that they were raised in the seemingly most different surroundings and yet they were not so very different at their rawest form.

The undeniable possibility was that Fenris did have a family that he could have been crazy to protect, but his memory bore no recollection. His psyche, his soul and his being however,  _didn't_  need some conscious thought to continue making him be himself, whatever that was, both his past self and his present self. Conscious memories had no real function, because what the mind dictated people to do was by far mostly unconscious and all the experiences –both the ones he remembered and the ones he didn't – and what those experiences made out of him were already stamped within his being. Past the power of his bold anger and misery caused by the trauma of the ritual and everything else that followed, his life as a slave, inarguably still painful… his other traits, his likings and his attitudes could have belonged to the Fenris  _before_  that trauma. For all one knew, he could have been the protective son or brother like Hawke was, always there to tank the dangers and sacrifice himself. He could have still been a sarcastic elf who liked animal jokes, muttered almost everything in a tone that uncontrollably went into G-flat and B-grump and his voice could have still been the very sound of rolling eyes. And if that were true, without a doubt, his amnesia was a godsend and a blessing.

In turn, Hawke had the burden of living with all memories intact and that did make a difference. Still having a family also made a difference. She was born on the run and remained with the people that were just as much in danger as her all her life, before one by one they seemed to be taken away at random at the mercy of an ultimately merciless destiny. She had all the motivation to have a much bigger mental breakdown than him, just as much as she had all the more motivation than him to keep it together and work her ass off actively for whatever her family needed, because she was the pillar and the rock that held it together. They both feared discovery of course, but treated their predicament a little differently. But their story was yet to disentangle much like everyone else's. There was still time to figure them out and witness either their redemption or their demise.

* * *

**Evening, Hawke's Estate**

"And then the guy cleaved through that sick bastard's back, turned him around and with one blow totally and mercilessly decapitated the f-  _fiend_!" Varric said and gestured dramatically. "Then we ran for the hills on the roofs and down the buildings like the steady but quick charge of the swan across the lake and up in the sky! Well, it was exactly the opposite with us, but you get the metaphor." At that Hawke rolled her eyes and shot her mother a look as if to say he was exaggerating even if speaking in metaphors. Varric of course grinned and had to add, "And this brave little fiend here though completely exhausted and out of her mind, took turn to heal all of us."

With that Fenris coughed immediately to remind Varric he shouldn't tell the next great thing that happened because of that splendid little move. Hawke in turn simply chuckled and said, "Nothing like a little magic with greeting the sun in our massive prison break."

"Hm… what is missing is the Queen of Antiva catching wings and taking off in the horizon sprinkling fairy dust over you as you ran," Leandra said, her tone rather too vague to be sure it was sarcastic or not. She got up and said, "I'll go get the spring rolls."

"Since when do you heal?" Merrill asked with a heightened tone. "I thought you were a damager no matter your choice of weapon."

"I'm full of surprises," Hawke said cheerfully. "And I had a great teacher."

"I'm not that great, Hawke, no need for flattery," Anders said with a smile.

"Not you, my Father," she retorted and pointed at him calmly. "You  _definitely_  suck."

Fenris quickly snorted in amusement and continued drinking peacefully from his glass. Anders in turn pressed in hidden offence to save it, "If you mean at teaching, then I definitely agree."

"Yeah, your teaching… that's what I meant," Hawke said evilly with a grin and drank away too.

"Hawke… you're undeniably a great mage," Anders started in an annoyed tone and looked towards the kitchen door as if to make sure Leandra was really gone. Then he fixed his eyes on her and continued, "But you're a terrible, mocking, insubordinate, obnoxious, stubborn and highly defying student."

"I'm a terrible, mocking, insubordinate, obnoxious, stubborn and whatever else you said  _person,_ " Hawke said in amusement. "Did you think I would turn that to the contrary when dealing with other obnoxious, stubborn, terrible, whatever people?"

"I may be stubborn and all those other things, but I am not obnoxious," Anders said cheerfully.

"Oh no," Fenris said calmly. "I'm sure you are the joy of all joys somewhere down in the colourful lands of fairies and unicorns."

"And you're surely Knight-Captain Pleasantness in Pink Butterflies and Smiley Rainbows Land," Anders muttered sarcastically.

"Legion Commander, please," Fenris said. "I've worked hard for my title."

"Commander of the Stupid I take it," Anders retorted.

"No, just Commander," Fenris said calmly. "As I said, I wouldn't want to upset those people's nervous system with such knowledge."

"Don't worry, Commander, either way you're still a disappointment," Anders replied.

Fenris took another great sip and said, "I don't, for either way I still don't care."

"Same goes with me, Teach'," Hawke said cheerfully and raised her glass.

"Oh, admit it," Anders said with a grin. "You're having fun."

"Tyeah I am, look at my dosage," Hawke said, raising her glass.

"No, I meant with me, training your mana," Anders corrected. "You like doing what you do and you're using any means to deflect and prove it to be otherwise."

"Yeah, you caught me," Hawke said sarcastically. "I'm totally pretending to be a pain the ass because I'm horrified you'll notice I'm having fun." Then she drew up the most childish smile and said, "Or you could just safely say that it's the other way around –I'm having fun because I am being a pain in the ass and you can't stand it."

"If I couldn't stand it, I would've kicked you out of my clinic on the first day," Anders said while rolling his eyes. He leaned back in his chair. "You're not as bad as you think you are."

"No, I'm not as  _not bad_  as you think I am because I'm not really trying," Hawke said assertively. "And yes the overly redundant grammatically incorrect formation was necessary to prove the point."

"And you trying hard to prove it is definitely a testament to how much you're really not trying," Anders retorted.

"What I'm really not trying is  _not trying_ to create insane and incoherent antonym of questions to not make you unable to not follow nothing that I'm not saying," Hawke said childishly.

"My head is certainly not  _not_ exploding," Varric intervened in a genuine tone of discomfort. His hands were on his head.

Hawke smiled crookedly and shrugged. "I'm not filled with lack of remorse."

"Seriously, don't do the opposite of stopping what with making my brain dance and twist under the anti-sunlight," Varric said calmly and narrowed his eyes at her. "You're certainly by no means not non-annoying."

"Hm, that still makes sense to me," Hawke said while appearing to be pondering on it. "Time to up my medication again."

"How negatively unreasonable," Fenris muttered and drank away. "It seems somebody finally managed to bring Varric to genuine exasperation."

"A success! I'm drinking to that," Hawke said childishly.

"I'm sorry, are we speaking in sarcastic double-negative one-positive sentences?" Varric asked. "Because if so, then you're right. Nobody manages to bring me down."

Hawke and Fenris suddenly exchanged a subtle look joined by little smirks and an evil spark in their eyes. Varric quickly scowled and repeatedly moved his pointy finger at each of them. "What was that? Did you just share a look?"

"Nope," Hawke said calmly, sipping from her glass.

Varric then looked at Fenris and he shrugged. "Don't look at me, I was just flinching."

Hawke chuckled and pointed at him with her glass as she said, "Yeah that historical flinch of his has been so misleading over the years. For a good time I thought he kept winking and giving me the saucy eyebrow."

"And then came the enormous pleasure of seeing you feel like a fool," Fenris added, amused and smirking.

"Maybe he really was giving you the saucy eyebrow but simply denied it to play with your head," Anders intervened, smirking as well.

"Preposterous!" Hawke exclaimed. "What would that accomplish?"

"My, whatever could that accomplish?" Anders pretended sarcastically while resting his chin in his hand. "Men are so deeply complicated."

"Is that what you tell yourself every time a man rejects your advances?" Fenris fired back.

"And that concludes the mystery of who is worse than Isabela at using the most predictable of cheap shots," Anders retaliated.

Hawke ignored their stings and said, "Anders is right. Men are not complicated." She smiled and added, "Which means they don't waste time playing with people's heads, making sorceries and trying to plant ideas that have almost no chance of catching roots."

"Unless they are really evil," Anders added while grinning. Then he lifted his eyebrows and subtly titled his head in the Fenris's direction. "Or simply pathetic."

Fenris looked at him and narrowed his eyes, saying sharply, "I saw that."

"Well, I didn't try very hard to hide it," Anders said mockingly.

"I hope you can try better in dodging the fist that's going to land in your face if you keep mocking me," Fenris said rather calmly.

"Ah, and we were getting along so well," Anders said sarcastically. "And I thought you said threats were typical only of mages."

"When they have no chance of winning," Fenris corrected, smirking confidently. "Do you really think I'd have a difficult time taking you and your weak little man-dress down?"

"The only scenario where that would be true is if I would be shackled in mana burning chains," Anders said self-assuredly, leaning forward against the table to mark his cocky territory.

Fenris positively laughed. "You have no chance with or without your magic."

"Oh, because of your markings?" Anders asked. "I've faced far worse than you in the magical resistance department. Your abilities are fairly equal to the ones of sickly dying weak in the knees Templar recruit."

Fenris contained his scowl and leaned forward with his hands on the table too as if to say, "You want to test that theory?" Instead he calmly said, "I did not in fact pertain to my special abilities at all. You are still a poor little chicken compared to what I can do."

"In the battle of mage versus warrior, mage always wins, Fenris," Anders retorted confidently.

"Unless you're thinking of having a little blood magic up your sleeve, your statement is pathetically foolish," Fenris said sharply.

"Magic is more powerful than any mighty swing of a sword. It's a general truth," Anders replied.

"Ahem," Hawke finally intervened. "I've beat the crap out of plenty of mages only using my sword, including blood mages." She smiled mockingly and gestured, "The trick is  _not_ to swing your sword mightily in the sky where it could reach and cleave your back while the mage also has a free and open pass to direct his attack right at your chest."

Anders didn't answer, but shot Fenris an angry glance because he started laughing again. At that he simply shrugged and gestured at her as he said, "Don't look at me, I'm not the reliable source who positively burned you just a second ago."

"Jee, I seem to have been dreaming all those times when I had to dispel your being magically paralyzed in combat," Anders finally retorted to Hawke.

"That was in a group fight," she corrected. "It's not the same in one on one combat." Then she added sharply, " _Not_ that I am suggesting we should test that theory. Of course, if you're really worked up about it what with your dumb manly pride and reeking testosterone poisoning my air," she said mockingly and pointed towards the hallway as she continued, "then please take it outside. I just cleaned the carpets."

"No need for gory blood baths on my part," Anders said, smiling. "I was simply speaking in theory."

Fenris snorted mockingly. "Evidently."

"Now, now, enough with murder in your tones and possibly also in your future," Varric cut them. "I'm vetoing on a big NO on your annoying cock fight at least as far as today goes."

Hawke raised the glass and nodded in Varric's direction, but Isabela intervened, "Now why would you rob us of the incredible fun that we can have seeing who's first to eat dirt off the ground?"

"Jee, I don't know, maybe because it's either me or Hawke who's gonna have to clean up and pay for all the damages," Varric said in annoyance. "And I don't know about Hawke, but I'm surely not good for it, in-between loaning Rivaini money all the time," he paused and narrowed his eyes at Isabela, "which you haven't paid me back since the day I met you by the way, then losing money to Lord Broodsworthy all the time because I don't seem to learn my lesson, then having the Merchant's Guild breathing down my neck, the Coterie still biting my ass too, watching over, Daisy, bribing the G-," he said and stopped because he forgot Aveline was there. "Well yeah, my plate is seriously full." He raised his dominant palm while closing his eyes and finished, "Thusly my no is final."

Hawke smiled childishly in her chair and said to Isabela, "Told you it's the real deal when he uses 'thusly'."

"You're such a hypocrite," Isabela protested, crossing her arms. "If Hawke and I went at each other's throats and asked for a duel, you'd be all eyes and ears and having a massive nosebleed all while bleeding out of your eyeballs as well," she said confidently and then winked. "Well the last ones would be bleeding blue, of course."

"Why would they be bleeding?" Merril asked in confusion. "And why blue? Would his blood freeze out fear and turn blue? Or is it really true that nobleborn people have blue blood?"

Varric sighed and gestured with his palm. "While I won't  _entirely_ deny that, Rivaini, you still wouldn't genuinely kill each other in the process."

"It's true, I wouldn't," Hawke said, smiling. "I couldn't possibly live with myself," she said and paused to put her hand over her heart, "knowing that you won't get to see me do my classic victory dance after I beat the crap out of you in less than thirty seconds."

"Aw, Hawke, that's cute," Isabela said confidently, "Thinking that you can outrun me in a fair fight."

"I entirely stand with my point," Hawke replied. "You don't play fair," she said, shrugging and grinning. "Neither will I."

"My point –missing it. If we both play fair, you wouldn't have a chance," Isabela said cockily.

Hawke genuinely laughed and flung her arms out. "Bitch you wanna test that theory?" She rose from her chair and very assertively raised her fist and smiled as she said, "Meet you out in five."

"Wow, you're quicker to threaten than any man at this table," Isabela said in amusement. "Which is arguably a good thing." She put her hands on the table and leaned forward. "I certainly like feisty. I'll most definitely not refuse a duel." Then she shrugged all-grinningly. "Only thing missing is Varric's veto."

They both peered quickly at Varric, who now looked extremely pale with his mouth slightly opened, gradually losing all expression short of something that seemed to make him resemble a ghost. Finally, he let escape his lips, "I'm so confused."

Merrill leaned over to Isabela and asked, "Is this it, when his blood turns blue?"

"Yes, Kitten, this is exactly it," Isabela said in amusement and couldn't stop smirking in delight at Varric's utter petrification. "Well?"

"I'm still confused," Varric drawled again in a ghostly manner, clutching at the table.

"I'll speak for Varric. He's giving you the thumbs up," Anders said quickly.

"No he isn't," Fenris cut him. "And… I think he's having a stroke."

"How about we let the populace vote on it?" Hawke said eagerly. "Does that seem fair?"

"A chance to see the tramp bite the dirt, I'm all in," Aveline said and raised her hand. Anders raised his hand too. Even Sandal did, although it was arguable whether he understood what was going on or he innocently mirrored everyone else. That left Merrill and Fenris, and Varric who was still pale and out of it. Merrill shook her head no. Varric finally lifted his hand, but was still staring into empty space.

"Come on, Fen-Fen, I know you want to," Isabela said all-grinning.

"I…" Fenris started, but didn't seem to be able to continue his sentence, arguable as to why. He stared blankly for a second, then fixed his eyes on Hawke, but all she did was lift her eyebrows and wait for him with arms crossed. A few more seconds of harrowing silence and he finally scowled and said, "This is ridiculous. Find your own time to be utterly childish."

"Seriously?" Hawke, Isabela and Anders all shouted. Then Hawke muttered to Varric, "This is bullshit. You can't let him have the last say in this. You have the veto."

"I'm… gonna leave the veto pending," Varric said. "My reason came back as soon as I accidentally glanced in the direction of Blondie's nose hair."

"You're gonna let nose hair decide a no is the right call?" Hawke asked in outrage. "You're an infuriating old man, Varric."

"I'm also a practical man," Varric said calmly. "Which means there's no chance in hell I'll let Rivaini die and get out of her debt."

"Wow, that's your excuse," Isabela muttered angrily. "There would have been bets placed, and you would have surely corrupted people into placing their money on the one you probably already know will lose." She flung her arms out. "Easy sodding money."

"Yep, I always win my bets," Varric said flatly. That quickly irritated Isabela, because she knew this was a subtle taunt in her direction for all the bets put on Hawke and Fenris that he had won so far, and the ones he would probably do anything for to win just the same. This wasn't over, she thought. Oh, you're on Tethras, she also thought. Whatever glimpse of kindness that remained in her deciding not to cause trouble tonight, he managed to kill faster than he did the fun.

"Ah, whatever," Isabela said nonchalantly. "It wouldn't have been as fun as seeing Fenris duel Hawke. After all, you two are the only ones who could fight with all your arsenal of crazy abilities and still call it a fair game."

"Hm, that's true," Hawke said while cupping her chin. "But I'd certainly hate to ruin his dress."

"I'm wearing pants, I- no," Fenris said and shook his head. "I am not getting sucked into this."

"Psht. Coward," Hawke muttered and finally sat down again. "Speaking of  _sucking,_ you suck. The fun. Out of everything. To eternity. Black, dull, utterly boring eternity."

"That is for the best," Fenris said flatly, sipping from his glass.

"The best of what? Dying from boredom?" Isabela protested.

"Stop putting ideas in their head, Rivaini," Varric said sharply. "Biggest most gigantic no on that one too."

Isabela chuckled, then she sighed aloud. "Oh, it's not a shame really. I mean we all know who would win. Alas." She came up from her chair and asked Hawke, "Mind if I find something to wear so I won't feel like Aveline's much prettier twin?" She took off before getting an answer.

"Sure, I guess," Hawke said, but started to appear as if she was lost in thought and just mechanically answered without listening. "Who did she mean would be winning?"

"Beats me," Varric said. "Although considering she cockily stated she'd win against you, which she thusly said cockily because she had no sheer confidence in what she said –well that and the only one shoulder shrug – I'm pretty sure she meant you."

"Of course she meant me," Hawke said and rolled her eyes.

"Did I just see you do the exact same thing that Isabela did when she, as Varric put it, did not have any confidence in what she had said?" Fenris asked while smirking and his eyes narrowed, his eyebrow going up.

"He said 'thusly' Fenris, you can't get out of that," Hawke pressed in irritation.

Fenris narrowed his eyes again, leaned over the table and said, "You just deflected."

"I offered a compelling argument," Hawke protested.

He shook his head and smirked. "You deflected by offering a separate, in truth not really a 'compelling' argument because you did not have the confidence of simply stating that you  _can_ take me down."

"I already took you down at Satinalia," Hawke said quickly. "Oops, sorry, I forgot that was supposed to be a secret."

Fenris broke into laughter. "That was pure charade to entertain the crowds."

"No it wasn't, you're just saying that now to save your ass because nobody at this table saw you but me, so it's a he said she said situation," Hawke said angrily.

Fenris smiled and said, "Did you really think I would be that cruel as to actually take down a woman in a dress wielding impractical duel weapons for all the world to see?"

At that, her face became red and she was almost literally blowing fumes out of her ears. And at that, Fenris smirked grotesquely strong.

"You little flaming weasel," Hawke growled in irritation, narrowed eyes growing murderous. "That's it. After dessert, I'm owning your ass."

"After dessert, you say?" Fenris asked coldly. "But then who would clean up all the mess? I'm certainly not good for it."

"Oh, don't worry, princess. I promise I won't cut your dress," Hawke said mockingly.

"This is childish," Fenris said flatly. "Pester somebody else with your inane threats."

"Outside, now," Hawke said and rose up.

"Please sit down," Fenris said while rolling his eyes.

Anders cut in suddenly, "You're genuinely threatened, aren't you? Varric, you know best, isn't he pissing his pants right about now?"

"You can simply check, he's sitting right next to you," Varric said nonchalantly. "But yeah, that little smile that went over his face right after I deflected your request says he's scared shitless that I might veto it."

"And now he's shooting you the scornful look," Hawke added confidently and crossed her arms. "Not concealing it that much either."

"Perhaps because this is utterly ridiculous and you're all idiots," Fenris muttered in annoyance.

"Painful, how he tries to save it now," Hawke said tauntingly.

"You're only saying that to deflect from your own diffidence," Fenris fired back.

"My own? So that follows… that you don't have much confidence yourself, right?" Hawke also fired and cupped her chin. "My, however could we see who's right?"

"Enough," Fenris uttered coldly. "I won- "

"I'll duel you, Hawke," Anders interrupted with a conniving smile. "It's still fair, all with me having special abilities and you having both forms of attack."

"Oh… well…" she started and shot an unnerved glance to Fenris for a second. Feeling angry and provoked, she shrugged and said, "Fine by me. At least someone has balls."

Isabela came back in the meantime and shouted happily, "I'm back, did you miss me b-"

"Are you an idiot?" Fenris asked sharply, looking at Anders. "Evidently a rhetorical question."

"I'm an opportunist and I don't mind taking on a challenge," Anders said confidently. He shrugged and his tone fell into mockery, "You snooze, you lose."

"I snooze just by listening to you," Fenris said in annoyance. "Would that I could fall asleep forever, but unfortunately your strangled soprano voice is keeping me up and in pain."

"Life is pain, highness," Varric intervened. "Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

"Yep, life is pain, and I thirst for it, baby!" Hawke shouted childishly. She winked at Anders. "Thanks for granting me the opportunity to inflict it upon you literally, Teach'"

"Talk is so cheap, but you know that," Anders said. "I know that… Varric knows that." He looked at the dwarf. "Well?"

"My veto is… pending," Varric said. "Check back with me after dessert."

"If you say no the third time in a row, I'm going to hit you," Hawke said angrily.

"Oh, I certainly didn't expect threatening with violence would come up AGAIN tonight," Varric said sarcastically. "Sit down, Missy, I want my des-"

"What the hell?!" Hawke came shouting, her shirt all wet and stained by red wine from Isabela's fallen glass.

"Sorry," Isabela said innocently. "It was an accident, I swear."

"Well we certainly know who would win from you and me with that unsteady hand," Hawke said grumpily, then took off in a fit of anger and in silence.

"Is it a cheap shot if I say she seems to  _really_  need the 'D'… for duel?" Isabela asked in amusement.

After a good thirty seconds of silence and murderous looks, Merrill's came innocently, "Is it cheap because you didn't use the whole word?"

"I'm sorry to say, but Mojo ate all the spring rolls just when I finished making them," Leandra's voice came from behind. "Fenris, could you come into the kitchen?"

"Certainly," Fenris said politely and urgently rose from his chair.

* * *

**2 minutes later**

"You asked for m-  _oh._ " Between freezing in shock and beholding the greatest scenery he had ever received what with Hawke being in a very black, very lacy, very revealing bra, he stumbled upon the table by the door and a candlestick fell. He caught the candlestick in time and clumsily started juggling it from one hand to another because for some reason he couldn't catch it in place.

"Fenris, what the hell?" she shouted, covering herself with the purple shirt. "What are you doing here?"

He juggled the candlestick a bit more from one hand to his knee and then the other and finally caught it right and placed it on the table again, against which he hit himself again and the candlestick shuddered  _again_  and downright fell. They both looked at it for a second in silence, after which Fenris didn't seem to resolve that he should turn around.

She stood there with lifted eyebrows and finally asked, "Do you… need something?"

"I… don't remember," Fenris stuttered. He coughed awkwardly and looked away.

"Then get the hell out?" Hawke pressed.

"Right," Fenris said and coughed again, feeling utterly stupid. He went to open the door, but for some reason Hawke quickly stopped him.

"Why did you come here?" she asked.

Fenris desperately tried to take his look off and away from her, because his highly disobedient eyes were stubbornly going where his brain didn't command them to go since she didn't work quite hard in covering her chest to include the cleavage that went with it.

Hawke snapped her fingers in his face. "Hello? Are you still there?"

"Of course I'm still here," Fenris uttered. He frowned and looked up. "Why I am still here?"

"Why were you here to begin with?" she pressed again.

Why were no memories or thoughts coming to him? His mind was dangerously empty and it didn't help that she was standing there all demanding and a covered part of her was staring at him demanding to be roughly  _uncovered_. He killed those only thoughts in his head and looked away the whole time.

"This is utterly familiar," Hawke said, eyes narrowed. "Are you drunk?"

"No," Fenris answered. "A bit. Not much."

"Fenris, I'm not doing this again," Hawke said angrily.

He cleared his throat all with still looking away and proceeded to open the door again. "Forgive me, I will go bring dessert."

Whatever logic was behind this did not make any sense to him, because Hawke caught the door and closed it rapidly in front of his face. Then with a swift and brutal motion she smashed Fenris against it and kissed him violently as if this was the end of the world and there was no more time for doubts and denials. The kiss took the breath out of him. If his mind had worked, he would have found this ridiculously strange and unmotivated, out of nowhere, senseless, but the only sense that laid in his midst was that her lips were rampantly hot against his own and they were close to driving his soul into rampage. What made it enough and cruelly irreversible, was that he found himself devoid of any sense of past chivalry, because his arms veiled her back and crushed her against him totally. It took a few seconds more to understand that what he was touching was hot, bare skin. And it was smooth, and soft and his hands moved and pressed all across it to catch its delightful wholeness, indeed much like a blind sculptor that was determined to feel every curve. With that, a terrible weakness came over him. His hands inadvertently clasped her hips and imprisoned them. While that incredible softness of her lips, her back, her hips seemed to grow, it infected all of his heart and spirit. It maddened and hardened him and now more than ever, he was reduced to nothing.

Sounds, places, people, and most importantly reason, was gone and Fenris was changed. He forced her mouth open and caught her tongue in his. This was no time to call it heartless lack of concern for permissions. His fingers tightened on her hips with less undisguised desire, then with a gentle motion, his cold hand moved slowly up her side, leaving chilly traceries on her skin. Devil that his mindless right hand was, the slow delicate touch made her shudder and involuntarily bite his lip. He was not displeased of course, his low quiet groans confirmed it most pleasurably. But a sudden shock followed, when his hand tactfully stopped right under the bra that it started to burn her ribs. The shirt that covered her was gone. She seemed to grow ever more delirious with his embrace and had to clutch at his elegant coat with both hands. This was curious, she wasn't overpowering him with anything as she did more often than not, rather she used her hands to lean against his chest and let him imprison her and do whatever he felt like doing. It gave him the feeling that she was a lot more fragile and defenseless than before, beautifully weak and delicate under his dominance and solely dependent upon his mercy. It was different and he felt as if his arms were immense, effortlessly powerful. A bit of reason came back with that, however ironically.

"Hawke." His voice was low, urgent, his breath warm against her neck as he kissed her again. "What are  _you_ doing?"

With that she parted from his lips and still clutching at his shirt, she looked right into his eyes and appeared perplexed."Sorry, I lost myself for a second there."

"That's your excuse?" Fenris asked, anger edging in his tone. He regretted it as soon as he said it. This was over. Good thing, considering where they were, but very very bad for him even so.

She frowned of course and asked with the same edge in her tone, "I'm sorry, was it not you who came here for no apparent reason?"

Finally, seeing the illicit intimacy that just happened behind the closed door, his memory and reason came back to smite him. "Your mother said you asked for me."

"Why would I-," she started in outrage, but her face became pale with a sudden realization. "Wait." She looked around the room urgently, appearing to be searching for something. Meanwhile she forgot to remain covered and quickly grabbed the sheets away from the bed. There was a little basket-looking object on it. The last thing he heard was her growling, "Oh, you bitch."

Then the object exploded in front of them, storms of red and pink petals flying everywhere and a powerful smell of fragrant perfume infected the room.

"Fucking bitch," Hawke shouted angrily, coughing and shoving all the petals off her hair and shoulders.

"I don't understand," Fenris said, getting the flowers off of him. "Why would your mother…"

"What? No," she shouted very angrily. "This was all Isabela. She probably told my mother to tell you to come and it didn't seem strange since – oh no…"

"What?" he asked.

"This means she's going to have Varric or perhaps everyone barge in here to – "

A loud noise came from the main room, people shouting in alarm. Fenris opened the door just briefly to see what was happening. He saw everyone forming a circle around what he could guess was Anders grasping around Varric's waist because he was choking.

"Why… why do people have to ruin everything I do?" Hawke's voice cried from behind. She grabbed Fenris by the coat and told him, "Quick. Let's go."

"Where? To Heaven?" he asked sarcastically. But when he turned around she had a red shirt and her old coat on. She rushed towards the closet and pushed it strongly forward. There came a trap door on the floor and she beckoned for him to come once she opened it.

"To the Void more likely," Hawke mused as she got on her knees.

"I honestly don't understand anything that is happening right now," Fenris said in contained exasperation.

"You wanna stay here after Varric is finished with his stunt massive choking?" Hawke asked urgently. "Fine by me, but I'm leaving."

"I… no, I would rather literally fall into the Void than remain here," Fenris said. She lifted her eyebrows and nodded as if to say, "I told you so".

But then her face became darker and while keeping the door lifted, she said, "I have to say this now. It was… truly and absolutely done with the best intentions."

"I'm… even more confused," Fenris said, fixing his alarmed eyes on her as he came down.

"You'll understand soon," Hawke said cuttingly. "Just… don't kill me." Then she quickly jumped into the trap door and he followed without further ado.

 


	46. Varric's Birthday III: Psychoanal

"I don't recognize this part of the underground passage," Fenris said as they were walking down a very cold and eerie corridor. This part was not maintained at all, cobwebs adorned the walls and the collapsed stone everywhere painted a very grotesque picture. This was certainly a separate passageway perhaps even further down beneath the earth than the one leading to Darktown.

"Could you make some light?" Hawke asked, calmly ignoring him.

"Could you not create a flame too?" Fenris asked with an edge to his voice. Dust was falling out from the ceiling and they could hardly see anything.

"I could, but I'd rather not," she replied. "And I asked first."

"Yours doesn't make you be in pain," Fenris fired back in irritation.

She remained silent, admitting defeat perhaps in shame for not remembering. Then with a swift motion, a roaring flame came out of her hand. Only after a minute walking did her face begin to twitch and give a subtle design of pain. After another silent minute he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Hawke answered placidly.

He fixed his eyes on the flame sustained above her palm. Perhaps fireballs were only meant to be thrown and not held in place in someone's hand. "Does it hurt?"

"No," she said flatly.

Fenris didn't believe her. He rolled his eyes and quickly became alight with the blue incandescence of his markings refracting from his outfit.

"Turn it off you lunatic," she hissed angrily.

"No," he said.

She suddenly stopped. "Seriously? You don't want to be in pain, but I twitch one time and you light up in a second? And literally too?"

He didn't answer, his eyes remained cold and a bit annoyed, and he started walking again. She pressed from behind, "I'm not in pain. It burns a little just like any other time when one puts a hand slightly above a flame."

"It's better this way. You don't have to use magic," Fenris said flatly. He lifted the sleeves from the coat and the shirt up so that at least a part of him could glow brighter since the black coat was a bit more opaque.

She caught up with him and said, "You didn't seem to have a problem with me wielding magic just a minute ago."

"Enough, Hawke," he pressed in annoyance as they walked. "I'm not turning them off and you cannot stop me."

She would have become stubborn and grabbed him forcefully by the bare part of his arm just to show him there was in fact a way for her to stop him, but considering what he was about to see whence they got out of the passages, well… death with a bit of delay seemed like a much better idea. She took the lead and remained silent.

Once they arrived in a cavern filled with the smell of incense as well as a burning infection of death in the air, Fenris stopped and scowled. "This is the route to the Chantry."

"No, we're still about a hundred yards away from their underground spooky tunnels," Hawke said.

He frowned at her. "You seem to know a great deal about these passages. I take it this is not your first scavenger hunt."

"Well if it were then why would I install a trap door in my own room?" Hawke asked in amusement. "Gotta be prepared for any kind of danger. Earthquakes, hurricanes, Templars, Qunari, the Viscount… my Mother."

His eyes remained fixed on her with no emotion or amusement at her joke. Then his voice came low and disapproving, "We're under my house, aren't we?"

"We're about to be," Hawke said with a little smile and started walking again.

Fenris was still scowling, but remained calm and cold in voice, "This how you enter my home without me hearing you until you're in the hallway."

"You know my idea of picking locks is bashing the door down entirely," Hawke said with an innocent tone. "This is a win-win situation."

"You're terrible," Fenris said angrily.

"Now why do you go so accusatory on me?" she asked. "You could have figured this out in what? Three years almost since you've been living in that mansion?"

"Somehow I think that you found whatever hidden trap door there was in the mansion and thoroughly hid it even more so I would never ever figure it out."

"If it makes you feel any better, I – "

"Venhedis," came Fenris's growling voice. He walked into a trap that almost crushed his foot and the greenery on the wall suddenly entrapped him against it.

" – heavily trapped the place to prevent the insane case of some enemy forces swooping on you in the middle of the night."

She waved a spell to release him from the mysteriously strong greenery, then got down on one knee and disarmed the trap. "Well, at least you had the advantage of wearing shoes. This could have been a close call."

"Marvellous," Fenris muttered as he got his foot out of the trap. "Now they're slightly ruined."

Hawke smiled and shrugged. "Eh, Father won't mind."

"Who now?" Fenris asked urgently, his eyes growing wider, his eyebrows lifting and his expression all the more frozen.

She got up on her feet and remained all smiles. "Didn't Mother tell you? Everything you're wearing right now belonged to him."

"She told me not to ask," he drawled, frowning and seeming ashamed. "I resolved it was simply a gift."

"It was a gift. It's not like he'll need them back anytime soon," Hawke said nonchalantly.

"But why do they fit?" Fenris asked in confusion, his mind refusing to question anything else that was more evident to the tale. "Your brother is certainly not as…" he paused, "… angular as me."

Hawke broke into chuckles. "Angular, he says. I do need to give you some credit for trying not to accidentally insult a dead man that might have resembled you by calling him skeletal."

He didn't answer, perhaps because he thought there was nothing to answer. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Have you looked into a mirror by any chance over the last year or two?"

"Is there a point to that ridiculous question?" he asked coldly.

She chuckled again and pointed at him as she said, "When I met you, you were indeed skin and bones and withering muscles. But settling down and working with me did bring food on the table like never before, didn't it?"

"You mean to say I'd grown into it," Fenris said while pondering on it. "I haven't really noticed."

"I bet there are a lot of things that changed about you that you haven't noticed," Hawke said with a smile. "Come on, we're close to the opening."

"I can't… keep the clothes," Fenris interrupted her and he looked down. "I am not worthy."

"It's not like he's going to jump out of his grave and fly to Kirkwall on his skeletal wings just to strike you down for stealing his clothes," Hawke mused. He frowned and remained silent, perhaps because he didn't understand why she would make such a joke about the dead. She beckoned it was nothing. "He would really roll in his grave laughing if he heard my joke. He was like that."

"I… see," Fenris drawled, looking down again. When he lifted his eyes onto her, he asked in a low voice, "Do I really remind you of him?"

At that, Hawke frowned and hesitated, seeming to ponder on it. "Not really. Some things. But like I said, I'm the spitting image of him. And you're not like me."

"That is fairly arguable," Fenris retorted. "Apart from my distinct abundance of whining and plaintiveness and your reckless impulsive behaviour and disrespect for boundaries, we are not in fact very different."

"You forgot the part where I'm a human mage and you're an arguably Templar-resembling elf." She snorted and shook her head. "That almost sounds poetic."

"Yes, that is certainly a variable that forms character," Fenris said sarcastically. "Even if it was, it seems to me that it came to the same result."

"You may be right," Hawke said, her eyes becoming dark. "But you still don't know me." Then her voice became bitter as she looked down, "Not at my worst anyway."

"You don't know that part of me either," Fenris replied coldly. "Which is a relief."

"Hold that thought," Hawke said and stopped. "Seriously hold on to that thought. We're here."

* * *

She kept her mouth shut as they came up through the trap door she had magically sealed with an easy Arcane spell. It led to the room where they found the key to the main study and fought a butt-ugly rampant rage demon all those years ago. Moving the barrels away, they came out and she could hardly form any words, her soul puncturing and her heart pumping blood faster in her chest. She tried to lessen her heightening fear and conceal all emotion. Unchanged, she kept her mouth shut as they came out and went down the corridor to the main hallway.

"Why are you so silent?" his voice came and almost startled her. His eyes remained fixed and insistent on her and her pace grew slower.

"Just picturing you naked," Hawke lied. Of course it was only now a lie.

Fenris broke into laughter all of a sudden. "You've seen me before."

"No, I haven't," Hawke said with a frown.

"In the Deep Roads?" Fenris reminded.

"I'm sorry to say but I was just as unfortunate as you claimed to be, what with my eyes busy on battling the demon and all," she replied and pressed her lips.

He chuckled softly. "Then I am content with preserving the mystery."

"But it's not fair," she said. "You've also walked in on me."

"Oh, and all those times you've walked in on me don't count, Miss 'You should wear a red girdle around your night pants to slap off the ugly'?" Fenris asked with a taunting smirk. He resumed his look forward and said in a manly confident tone, "We are even, Princess."

"Princess?" Hawke asked in outrage. "Did you just call me Princess?"

"Do I need to repeat myself, Princess?" Fenris said mockingly.

"You never cease to astound me after you've had a few," she replied and shook her head, looking forward as they walked.

He didn't look at her, but a genuine smile drew upon his face in the flicker of the torchlights. Perhaps he was joyful to know he could still impress her in a good way, compared to all the other historical episodes of losing his temper or infecting her with his bitterness. It had never affected her however, not even in that one little episode in Antiva. He was a man who delved into extremes, but that flexibility while rampant and dangerous, was still better than a constant, repugnant aura of moderation that she saw in most people ignorant, comfortable and unwilling to grow under a despicable mask of nonchalance. His mask of coldness was but an inbuilt defence against those inevitable extremes in which his soul tended to go, but never cleave. He focused all his energy only in one point instead of splitting his soul and forming an incoherent behaviour and an all the more divided psyche.

Speaking of infection, that smile truly died whence they came into the hallway. She lost herself in those thoughts and forgot about the impending shock that her doing would harrow upon him now that her plan was ruined by outside forces.

He stopped, petrified, his face losing almost all expression. His eyes remained fixed on the abominable spark of insanity that he was beholding in front of him.

The main hallway was changed.

It suddenly looked much smaller, to say the least. The floor used to have hexagonal tiles and a great deal of them missing. They were all missing now and a good part of the floor was covered by a massive rich carpet of a flashy but deep and dark green with some thin and white embroideries. The high stone walls seemed much cleaner, brighter, the red heraldry flags hanging high above were gone. The ancient heathen statues were all gone, the high vases, the boxes, everything. The high narrow windows were adorned with crisscross curtains of the same dark green that didn't really cover them. And below, the two lonely wall lamps had transformed into four bigger golden ones. The little table he installed remained in place on the left side, but it had new parchments on it, an inkwell and some pallet with a lot of colors, and next to them were some little flashy glass figurines in the image of exotic animals, a tiger, a giraffe, an elephant, a lion and a lioness, and an ibis bird.

On the right side, beside the stairs was a midnight violet armchair with an ottoman of the same nuance, a nightstand next to it with a bunch of red candles on it, a tea cup, a glass and small round bottle of cider. Only the distinct beeswax candles, he noticed. That was the only type of candle Hawke ever fancied and purchased; something about their endurance she said. On the other side of the armchair was a small bookcase full of them, and judging by their colors they were not his own or the ones that belonged to the previous owner of the house.

And indeed it looked like a place full of subtle and luxurious mortal consolation, where one might simply sink in an armchair of velvet, rest one foot down on the ottoman in front of it and read some ancient book by the silent flicker of the red candles on the nightstand.

He was perplexed, this didn't make any sense. But even so, it was stupefying to think that she brought and adorned the place only with the exact things and colors he liked.

Then something else rather beautiful, highly arresting and eye-catching bore in his vision. There were paintings on the walls. Paintings he had never seen before, except for one. The one he recognized was a canvas Hawke had kept in her room leaning with its front against the wall, forgotten by time along with other smaller canvases much the same. Of course she kept a veil over them, but once in his visits, infected by his curiosity, he moved the greater canvas to see what it was. She had never mentioned she was a painter and he'd never asked.

The painting was of ruined buildings, broken columns, rampant greenery and distant mountains. There was nothing extremely distinct to give it away except for the mountains and the high fir trees that surely made the beautiful image of some place in Ferelden. She had told him about her mother country once or twice, about the proud countryside people, the enchanting greenery and fragrance in the air wherever you go no matter if you're by the sea or in the mountains, the great flocks of migratory birds leaving Ferelden every autumn just when the trees all became rampant with leaves of red and golden. She had told him that every sunset was rosy and violet in the warm season. But every sunset and sunrise thereafter seemed so warm and secured by the wild green of the forests that it left no room in one's mind to doubt or think or sink into miserable brooding of past or future recollections. Only the present. And all of these things were rendered with such exactitude in the painting right beneath the stairs, that it almost felt as if she had never left the country. But all that there was to it were her skills in forming great images keenly from memory. He'd seen that in Antiva. He could have easily just stood up from the couch when she painted him and went to have tea, a good nap, then dinner and another tea before coming back and she would have still finished painting a perfect picture. And it unnerved and confused him to find himself impressed not only with her realistic technique, but with the figure itself, that he liked what he saw, even if perhaps it was a lie.

But now that he glanced upon the other smaller paintings on the walls, they were all full of emotion and naturalness. There was of a high tree and behind it the sun was either setting or rising, because the upper half was midnight violet and the lower one above the horizon was golden and rosy. Another was of Hightown during the night with all colorful lanterns, wreaths and festoons, legacy of the Kirkwall type of Satinalia. Another one depicted a sea in times of a storm, the raindrops curiously well depicted, and a distant coast on the right which he suspected was  _wounded._ Another one surely was of Antiva City with its high domes and white buildings, the violet sky and the streets lit with red lanterns, the long green canals full of black gondolas and the endless stream of busy people on the quays with flushed faces, luxuriant hair and gorgeous clothing always rumpled and curling in the wind.

And the last one was of a green and red apple held in two metal ordinary gauntlets.

Then, to close the horrific and beautiful scenery, ten darkwood chairs closed a long oak table right in the middle of the hallway with ten silver plates, two small and round bottles of cider, two vintage bottles of champagne and a larger plate in the center where Fenris's apple pie stood big and proud, screaming to be eaten.

He did not utter one word. His eyes were scrutinizing the scenery with so much seeming lack of emotion her shoulders sank and her legs began to tremble. She gulped and started rubbing her arms at the imminent disaster she felt was coming. Only being used to him helped her recognize it was anger that his perplexed and cold expression was growing into.

Finally, his voice came low and edgy, almost remorseful, "Hawke, what have you done…"

"I… wanted to make the progressive dinner… progressive," she drawled nervously, scratching her head, then clutching with one hand at the other elbow.

He frowned shortly, but didn't look at her at all. His voice came just as cold and low, "You mean people are coming?"

"Bodhan smuggled the pie in here and was supposed to come back and pretend there was smoke coming from your roof and –" she said, containing her emotions as much as possible. "And then well…" she paused and drew a crooked smile and waved both hands in the air as her voice became weaker, "… surprise."

She froze when Fenris fixed his tense green eyes on her and demanded ruthlessly, "What else did you change?"

"Nothing," Hawke almost shouted immediately. "I didn't touch anything in your room. Everything else except this hallway I left unchanged." She raised her palms as a sign of peace. "I resolved that if you're not alright with this I take everything down at once."

"Oh, you resolved?" Fenris asked with an edge to his voice, sending shivers of fear down her spine as he locked his angered gaze at her. "You don't waste any time, do you?"

"Well your voice says you mean I did waste a great deal of my time with this gesture," Hawke said in a mask of calmness.

"You don't say," Fenris muttered sarcastically and walked forward, looking at the walls.

She was lost for words and felt like hitting herself over and over again, because she was sure he would react negatively and she still stubbornly went along with it anyway. She wanted to say something, but nothing came and she didn't approach him from behind. His head lowered and his arms parted away from his sides as if preparing to do something. "Fenris – "

He turned around quickly and flung an arm out as he almost shouted cruelly, "Just because I changed my sheets and bought some candles does not mean I want this, this," he paused and gestured disgustfully with his hand and his expression, "fantasy life."

Oh, but going after her was nothing like a fantasy life, right? How longer before he dismissed her too? She wasn't still beheld as fantasy because indeed, she didn't live in the house and her visits were a temporary happy get-away, just like every intimate encounter they had. She became angry and couldn't contain her scowl any longer.

"Idiot," Hawke shouted crossly. "Just because I threw some ugly statues away and put up some curtains and hung some paintings doesn't mean I've built some fantasy life for you by force."

"Then what do you call this? A… happy little makeover?" Fenris asked irately, his scorn visible from Ferelden. "A thoughtful little restoration?"

"Call it whatever you want, I don't care," Hawke retorted in annoyance. "I'm taking everything down if are really so offended by what I did."

"Yes, you care not," Fenris muttered furiously. "Not for boundaries nor for leaving things be."

"I care  _not_?" Hawke asked in outrage. She sighed angrily. "You think I barged over to Anders or Merrill or anyone else to give them 'happy little makeovers'?"

"No, clearly I'm the only one to be the laughing stock for you," Fenris said flatly.

"Doesn't that make me the laughing stock too? You were the one who kept staring at my curtains and my candles and it was you who scrutinized the animal figurines in the market." She sighed again. "And it was also you who didn't have 'respect for boundaries' and searched my canvases while I wasn't looking."

"That's what you call disrespect for boundaries? Compared to you, that was an innocent little act of curiosity," Fenris said as he flung his arms out. He took another step forward and pointed at her with all the rancour of an accusation. "You turned this place into a carnival."

They fought as they'd never fought before. It was hell that stopped her, the thought of hell, of them being two souls in hell that grappled in hatred.

"Fine," Hawke articulated with narrowed eyes. "If that's what you see, I apologize for my impertinence."

She watched him shake his head bitterly and gazing down as if he was unworthy of being in the room or more obviously, felt infected by everything in it. The he seemed to frown as if he had a sudden realization. He lifted his angry gaze up and said, "This is why you didn't want me to leave your room and tackled me with kisses. You heard me say I was going to bring dessert, but there was no dessert at your home then, was it?"

"I… didn't know how to react," Hawke drawled while looking down. "It was instinct."

"Your instinct is to smash me against a door and distract me with all your," he paused angrily and gesture towards her, but he seemed to give up on whatever he was going to say. Perhaps something stopped him from truly offending her. "After we had already resolved not to go there anymore."

"Hey, you were the one who told me to cease with my stupid concern for you and kissed me anyway after all that big speech I uttered," Hawke shouted in annoyance.

"All you do is to confuse and shock me," Fenris said, his voice infuriated. He pressed his eyes tightly shut and kept shaking his head.

"That's not a very good accusation," Hawke protested, fixing her eyes on him bravely. "What you do to me is horribly similar."

He raised his hand towards her and appeared so very determined with whatever he was next to say. "I  _never_ crossed any line with you when it came to," he paused and shook his head bitterly and in exasperation, "whatever this is. All I've ever said and done were to the limit of your permissions."

"Yes, you've made it horribly clear that I'm your oppressor and you're the chivalrous victim of my aggressions and trespasses," Hawke said with a contained scowl. "Way to go, Fenris, implying you're my slave."

He remained silent. He seemed not to have any answer to that. He took a few steps in the direction of the stairs, then he turned his head sideways and his voice came calm and softer, "I am not implying that." He turned around and seemed bitter. "You are not doing this to aggress me. But you are not doing this out of kind-hearted care either."

"Let me guess," Hawke said and crossed her arms. "I'm doing this because I feel guilty."

"No," Fenris said flatly. He took his coat off and put it on a chair at the table. Then he rested his arm on it and continued, "Or perhaps it is out of guilt, but I sure am not the one to conceive as to why. But this is something I noticed you've been doing."

"And what is that?" Hawke demanded.

"I'm your little project," Fenris said with a firm, but empty look. "Just like your sudden active hand against politics, the humanitarian acts, why you came to my house during the night the other day. You can't stand to sit by and do nothing while the world crumbles apart and destroys itself from the inside out."

"Oh, is that what you do?" Hawke asked in amusement.

"As if your keen little mind hasn't thought about it before," Fenris replied calmly.

"Yes, you know me so well," Hawke said in articulate sarcasm.

"About the same time the year we met, you did the same thing with the abandoned estate," Fenris said. "You ran away from the world and hid there, but you didn't just sit and brood in your secretive misery. You sought to restore what little was left of the mansion."

"Actually no, that would be two months from now," Hawke said calmly, arms still crossed and clutching at each other in contained distress. "You have two guesses left."

"This is awfully familiar," Fenris said, appearing to have remembered something. "Your Father also had little respect for any sort of boundary when it came to your Mother. He barged into her home in the middle of the night, crashed noble parties, he –"

"I don't know what my Mother told you," Hawke cut him with a decisive voice. "But he was not a bad person."

"He wasn't, he was a good person and a strong mage with a distinct hatred towards his powers," Fenris said and shrugged. "You are keeping his legacy alive."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Hawke asked in outrage. "Is it suddenly a crime to be myself, while I happen to resemble someone I spent a lifetime with?"

"He made a mistake," Fenris said. "And he had to flee. Then your mother had to sacrifice her noble roots and run away with him."

"And what? You think I'll do the same?" Hawke asked. "Because I meddle in politics? You're welcome to stay here, Fenris, I'm not shouting for you to run away with me."

"That is quite correct. You would never dare string me or anyone else along," Fenris said as if that should have been some calm statement with a little accusation lurking in it. "You wished you could get lost on the road or become a Grey Warden when you ran away and you wished you would never come back to Kirkwall. You've felt bitter here what with being in the heartland of Templars. The only thing that kept you in place was that you could never dare to abandon your Mother who'd never done anything wrong by you except try to give you a better life here, even with all the dangers lurking about." He remained silent for a second and searches his thoughts. "And you could also not dare to barge into your brother's new and rewarding life where you would bring him torment again by stealing his thunder. After all, you've always thought it was your fault that he almost died in the Deep Roads."

"Are you done psychoanalysing me, Fenris?" Hawke asked in annoyance. "I don't see how this has any connection with what I did, let alone to the subject itself."

The next statement threw her off.

"I am you," Fenris said bluntly, even if his voice calm and flat. "Except I have no one and there is no apparent reason I would stay here forever except for the fact that I have an advantage in numbers if any danger should come. But the dangers that are lurking in your midst are here, concrete and imminent. The Templars here are a nightmare. The only thing you can do is face your fears by taking an active hand. It annuls the fear if you treat it as if it were nothing, because if you are taken away, your family is destroyed."

"Yes, Templars and social human politics, they are surely connected," Hawke protested sarcastically.

His voice low and determined, "You know you would run in a heartbeat if you had no one." He took another step forward and fixed his eyes on her, "And that scares you."

"What scares me? That I would one day abandon everyone or that you would?" Hawke asked, her voice becoming weak.

Fenris looked away, but took another step forward and pierced her with his clear eyes. "I think both these things scare you."

"So the thing to bring me comfort is to tidy up a hallway and throw some animal figurines," Hawke said sarcastically. "Way to go, Mr Perceptive."

"Well, if I don't run away, if I come to really put down roots here," he said and scrutinized the room, "you wouldn't be tormented by these thoughts. It would bring you comfort that if the one who has no ties here didn't end up fleeing this place, you most certainly wouldn't be able to either." He approached her yet again and his eyes fell halfway. "You, the one who has reasons to stay."

"You say my wish is to leave," Hawke said a bit angrily. "In that, doesn't it seem logical that I wouldn't in fact make you see you've put down roots here, but rather the contrary – I would convince you your misery and whining are justified and there is no place for you here."

"No," Fenris said. "Because you care for your family. Therefore, you feel guilty that you even allowed the thought of leaving to cross your mind and linger in its midst."

Hawke seemed to smile widely and uncrossed her arms. "Are you done? I want my turn too."

"What do you mean?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"To accusatorily psychoanalyse you with such complex explanations for a stupid little gesture," she said. He hesitated with an answer, so she pressed with narrowed eyes and a smile, "Oh, believe me. Mine is just as good."

"Fine," he said. "Proceed, if that makes you happy."

Hawke broke into soft chuckles. "See –one minute you resent me, the other it appears your only concern is for my happiness. The same thing you did in the passages. You couldn't stand even a speck of pain in my face if it was because of you. So your refusal to turn your markings alight was quickly forgotten and you sacrificed yourself."

"I know you don't like using magic if it's not necessary," Fenris said. "Even when it is necessary, I see the pronounced discomfort in your eyes."

"And what?" she asked a bit angrily. "You feel guilty that you're the one who forcefully dragged me to Anders's clinic?"

He frowned heavily. "I am not repeating mysel–"

"That you did it because otherwise I'd stubbornly live as a crazy abstinent mage and you stand your ground that it was the right thing you do," Hawke said, enumerating quickly. She nodded in his direction and added, "And my yielding at your firm hand means I also know it is the right thing for me to do, yes."

"Good," Fenris said flatly, concealing a smile.

She lifted her palms and smiled. "Isn't what I did the same forceful little thing?"

Fenris didn't answer and his face remained inarticulate. But he quickly became angry again. "This is not the same thing. There is no right and wrong here."

"I think there is," Hawke said assertively. "Just like my magic however much I hate it and do not wish to face it, still could cause me harm if I keep ignoring it… you keep trying not to face your misery, not to accept you're free, not to LIVE. And that will kill you."

"You know nothing," Fenris shouted in an overpowering voice.

"And there are a lot of reasons why you chose to become so angry now," Hawke continued. "One of them is that much like me, you wish to leave, but you also found reasons to stay. Those things scare you to death, and you hate things that manage to bring you fear. Thus, you get hot-headed angry and stubborn and unreasonable."

He remained silent, without protest. His eyes moved from left to right on the ground as she continued her explanation. "And even so, I've thought about it and I understand your choice to remain unadapted and a lowly misfit in a wreck of a mansion. You're not a slob. You shine your chest plate and your gauntlets on a regular basis, you sharpen your sword, you always buy tea, you apparently make pie and your room is now tidy and neat."

Then she pointed at the ground and said, "So this part of the mansion, the hallway and the other dark rooms, they have to remain a wreck and the Tevinter statues and vases in it also have to stay. It's a symbolic revolt against the Imperium. Being a slave meant you had to keep a perfect figure of composure and you had to do all the things you were told. Everything there was also luxurious, fancy, ostentatious. Perfect. Everything was organized, everything was certain, just like your destiny, your duties, your life." She paused and started pacing around. "Here, everything that bears the touch of Tevinter is crumbling apart and an awful mess. This way you get to keep your new identity as a former slave and you also get to express your fury against what they did to you."

To that, Fenris inhaled, looking down and appeared to become sad. He lifted his gaze and his voice came bitter and soft, "I haven't thought about it that way."

"Yet it doesn't make it less true," Hawke said assertively. "You also remain apathetic, not because you're a negativist at heart, but because it's a great way to defend yourself. When you're not calm and aloof, you grow angry and violent to annul whatever is the object of your fear. But when you're apathetic, it shields you from disappointment, that you might lose yourself, or that you might lose others and you will be forced to part with this city before some insane news that slavers are coming will ever arrive to your ears. It also protects you from the urge to spill out too much information about yourself, even if whatever happened in your past is eating you inside."

She sighed and looked away. "What you do half the time is act upon a true feeling. But just as quickly you shrink and ordain flight because you're afraid that anything good that you feel is going to wake up or create a conflict with everything you've done so far, as if it is tying you down just to torment you. Same thing goes with me. You enjoy the chase in part because it makes you not think about your past. But the chase also gives you the thought that there is a distinct possibility that you might not actually catch me. And you secretly hope I would refuse you for my own good."

His eyes became darker now, but he didn't say anything. His face though, said he was growing incredibly angry.

"More so, this way you get to avoid the chance of becoming conscious that you want to be the sole person that controls your destiny and never be in turn controlled again… like I only apparently did now, but you could always simply take all this stuff down. The concrete gesture is easier to become angry at than to enjoy that someone actually gave a damn… And you hate what I did because you actually like it! You're afraid that you like it," she said and met him all the way. His eyes remained locked on her and sorrowful, arrested. She finished softly, "And this way you also avoid the thought that you need to be taken care of sometimes."

To that, Fenris slowly closed his eyes in a bitter, tormented expression. Perhaps she dug and touched something too deeply. "I stand corrected," he finally said, looking into empty space.

"Why?" she asked.

He fixed his dark eyes on her. "Your explanations are far worse."

"Well, if that's it, I'm alright with that," Hawke said calmly and crossed her arms.

He scowled horrifically and said, "No that is not all." He pointed at the main entrance. "Now I understand why you didn't have the guts to show me what you've done alone, instead needing to bring the crowd here along with me to shield yourself from the reaction you already knew I would have if the others were not around. You thought it would be easier if I had to boil inside for a night and then eventually I would understand that it was out of care that you did this." He shook his head disapprovingly. "And you used my weakness for you to distract me from noticing your plan back at home."

"Yep, I'm a horrible person," Hawke pretended sarcastically.

"No, you're not and you know that…wait…" Then his eyes became wider, his mouth parted and he appeared stricken by a realization that concluded the looming disaster. "You want me to believe you are horrible. You… knew I would react like this. You did this _because_  you knew I would grow mad and resent you."

"That's not true," Hawke protested immediately.

But Fenris cut her mercilessly, "You don't want this." She looked at him in disbelief and arched an eyebrow to the heavens. He continued angrily, "But you don't have the courage to walk away." He pressed his eyes and shook his head, then he fixed his terrible look on her. "So you did this to drive me into walking away from you. Then you're free from any future guilt. "

Then he turned around and started pacing towards the stairs. "You are worse."

He was wrong. He felt penetrated so he resorted to become angry and resent her again, find any little reason why she was flawed and she was no different than any other mage who wanted to deceive and control him.

She didn't tell him because yes, she knew he would react like this, but if they all went in at the same time, Leandra, Varric, everyone, would have looked around, see that he was the one who made dessert (something that he did voluntarily, just like the clothes) and they would praise him for it. They would have offered him recognition that he was taking delight in being free. That he was living. But she was too impulsive and rash with this decision. She shouldn't have done it this way. She should have proposed it one day to him, convince him to do it together and he would refuse, then later he would have probably still did it because he knew she was right.

Her shoulders sank. She didn't know what to do. Go after him, leave him. People were surely coming in any minute now. She pressed her eyes shut and started running after him. But as soon as she caught up with him, her usual humorous defences came up and she started crying out, "Fenris, Fenris, Fen, Rys, Fenris, Fen-Fen, Fenris –darling Fenris, adored Fenris, sweet prefect grumpy Fenris, tell me I still have a chance to correct my blunder!" And with that, she did the most eloquent of gestures that seemed perfect at the time. She took a long bow and then lifted her gaze.

He closed the door in her face.

* * *

"There was actually a fire," Hawke said to everyone as they were seated down at the table eating the pie and drinking away cheerfully. "… just not the same one I planned."

"They appeared genuinely convinced by my stunt, suffice it to say," Bodhan said proudly, but a modest smile was what his face bore. "The pie is excellent by the way. I'm glad I didn't drop it when I stumbled into Knight-Commander Meredith on the street. She's a very scary woman, she is."

"What's she doing patrolling the streets at night all of a sudden?" Hawke asked urgently. "Was she accompanied by other Templars? Did it seem like a raid?"

"No, in fact she was quite alone," Bodhan said. "She was coming from High Estate District. Maybe she paid a visit to the DeLauncets? Perhaps their boy caused some trouble."

"I doubt it," Hawke said nonchalantly. "But still strange. She wouldn't go there personally. She'd send one of her loons to do it."

"You thinking what my incredibly paranoid mind is thinking?" Varric asked, eating his slice of pie with perfect delight.

"That she's up to something?" Hawke asked. "Hells to the yes."

"I'll ask around," Varric said confidently. "Don't worry. I'll find out in no time." His tone became sweet, "Just bear in mind that I'd still like tonight to be about joy and fun and even if it's a  _lie_ , I'd still take it."

"Speaking of joy and fun, where is our honourable host?" Anders asked.

"Like I said, looking for a lost ring from his crossguard," Hawke lied. "He's lost it before and went crazy over it until he found it stuffed in with the laundry." She narrowed her eyes and shot a glance to her mother. "And we all know how that feels."

"I haven't done that in a long time, love," Leandra said innocently with a smile. "You should give me some credit for that."

"Wait… is that Antiva City on the wall?" Isabela asked and pointed behind Hawke's head.

"Yep," Hawke said without turning around. "Rather nice memento right?"

"Zevran would have killed for that painting," Isabela said with a grin. "Wait… he's in there. The figure on the roof of the dome with the dark cloak. That's him, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Hawke said cheerfully and continued eating.

"Why are you smiling so much, Blondie?" Varric asked in confusion. Anders had been very silent and all smiles since they got there.

"I am seriously enjoying this pie," Anders said, still smiling.

"Even if Broody made it?" Varric asked with raised eyebrow. "I thought you would have politely refused all with thinking your slice is poisoned or something."

"I enjoy it especially because he made it," Anders said. "After all, who would have thought?"

"Oh, he's a private and modest person," Leandra protested with a smile.

"Of course he is," Anders replied calmly with a smile and half-lidded eyes.

"Speaking of private, maybe I should disturb him and help him look for that sword ring-guard-thing," Leadra said to Hawke. "After all, you said I'm an expert in misplacing weapons and armory."

"Exactly so. You specialize in misplacing them," Hawke said accusatorily. "I'm the expert in finding them."

"Then why don't you go, love?" Leandra asked warmly.

"No, I'm fine," Hawke refused quickly.

"Come on, you will save time this way," Leandra pressed.

She couldn't hate this more now. If she refused again, it would draw attention. Damn myself, she thought, then she sighed and got up.

But before she turned around, she heard a door opening. Fenris came out with a perfectly content, impenetrable expression and went down the stairs with the sleeves of his shirt still up, really like the host of a dinner party, the one who could afford to become more casual with their attire. She sat back down and banished all thoughts.

"He-he-hey, the man of the hour!" Varric shouted happily. "Did you find that crossguard ring?"

Fenris took the seat where he left his coat, which sadly happened to be next to Hawke's chair, but his face remained calm and peaceful. "No. I don't need it anymore."

"Then kind of a waste of time looking for it for ten minutes," Varric said with a raised eyebrow.

"Indeed, it was a waste of time," Fenris said flatly and cut out his own slice of apple pie.

"This pie however truly wasn't, needless to say," Leandra said warmly and raised the glass.

"Thank you," Fenris replied calmly.

"Maybe next year you can make me a bigass- _tonishing_ chocolate cake," Varric said happily. "I've always had a sweet tooth."

Fenris chuckled under his breath and told him, "For you Varric, I will make a ten story cake with you and Bianca on top of it."

"Aw, that's sweet," Varric said with an amused smile. "Maybe you can put a dragon too and make it look like I'm shooting a gigantic arrow right through its head."

"Or maybe we stick to reality," Fenris said coldly.

"At least a little Varric figurine on a cake is not far from your actual size, so you've got that going for you," Hawke said stingingly. People laughed. Fenris didn't. His glance was colder than Lothering during the winter. Apart from that, he didn't look at her at all.

"Well that concludes the mystery of who's going to get a big piece of cake right in their face," Varric fired back with a smirk.

"I do love cake," Hawke replied happily.

This was the perfect time for Fenris to muse with "Oh yes, you really do" and "How are your pants doing, Hawke? They seem rather tight" or "Too bad the cake will grow sour as soon as it sees you", but he didn't say a word. Hawke never mocked him about brooding, Varric taking over that domain and everyone else following, but now more than ever he proved just how much he could overthink and stretch a meaning out of cosmic proportions.

And now she couldn't hate Isabela more.

Ah, whatever. The night was still young. Tomorrow was another day. At present, she resolved to eat and drink in peace all with boiling inside at much of an idiot Fenris could be and that she was probably a bigger idiot even so.

"So tell me," Varric started all-grinning. "Did you voluntarily get those beeswax candles or did Hawke totally corrupt you with her insane obsession?"

Fenris poured himself a full glass of cider and muttered, "Well, she is an expert at corrupting people."

Hawke didn't retort with some cheerful witty line. Everyone else thought Fenris was calmly musing. Varric noticed it all and didn't let himself convinced. He frowned in his chair and remained silent himself. Something was up. Hawke seemed awfully quiet and Fenris wasn't smirking at all. The only time he joked was with him, and she in turn didn't seem to exist.

"Oh, Hawke the incredible mastermind," Isabela said cheerfully. "She did convince me to run into people and ask them to marry me."

"Was a particular dragon and kind of blood roaming in the equation when that happened?" Varric asked in amusement.

"Yes… in fact," Isabela said and pondered on it. "Oh you little b- _eeswax_ honeycandle, you."

"Don't sweat it," Hawke said. "You're no honeybee yourself."

"I'm more of a wasp, it's true," Isabela said subtly.

"Stay out of my flowers," Hawke retorted with a smile.

"But how can I when your choice of flowers have the best pollen to meddle into," Isabela retaliated all-grinningly.

"Beware of the bear when you're not looking," Varric intervened just as subtly and winked.

"I'm quicker than the bee and the bear, so I don't mind a little danger," Isabela said happily.

"As long as the man won't simply drown you," Fenris suddenly intervened.

"I'm… so confused," Merrill said sadly.

"Yeah, can we cut it with the incoherent metaphors?" Anders asked cheerfully.

"Oh, you learn to block out the yackety-yak after a while," Aveline said calmly and raised the glass. "Have another drink, it won't kill you."

"I'll pass," Anders said flatly.

"Good choice," Fenris said sharply and drank away, but fixed his eyes on him. "After all you can't afford to spill all of your darkest secrets."

"That's the least of my concerns," Anders said. "More so because I don't have some deep dark secret."

"Isn't that exactly what a man with a deep dark secret would say?" Fenris pressed, leaning back in the chair a bit harshly. Hawke looked at his small bottle. It was almost empty and nobody else had a drop. When did he have time to drink so much?

"I think what you're doing is called projection," Anders retorted with a smile. "Am I right, Hawke? That was the term."

"Uhm…" Hawke drawled, clutching at her glass. "The … term is correct."

"So that follows you're the one that has skeletons in the closet," Anders continued.

"I certainly used to," Fenris said confidently, pertaining to the literal case. He took another large sip. "Would you like to have a tour?"

"I'll pass," Anders said with a smile. "I think I've seen enough."

"Good choice," Fenris replied coldly. He noticed Hawke clutching at the chair, but ignored it completely. He poured the last remains of the bottle and drank away in peace.

"Well, this was a wonderful night," Leandra said cheerfully. Too bad not everybody agreed. "I hope you had a good time with what we prepared for you, Varric."

"Oh-ho, it was better than anything I could have ever imagined," Varric said and nodded with a smile. "Dinner was absolutely exquisite, and Fenris making dessert…" He raised his glass beckoning for everyone to toast. "I will sleep with happily with a full belly tonight all thanks to you."

After they bumped glasses, and after Hawke and Fenris's almost shattered from the tension when they did, Leandra said, "Don't ruin that belly of yours with too much alcohol afterwards though. You've had plenty already."

"Don't worry, I do everything in moderation," Varric said confidently. "And with that I'll make sure Hawke doesn't overdo it either. Am I right, Pan-  _Peaches_?"

Hawke frowned heavily and Leandra broke into laughter. "Don't call her that. That name is burdened with a lot of historical hatred."

"Oh?" Varric asked sweetly. "I'm sensing a great story there."

"Yeah, not gonna happen," Hawke cut him joyfully. "At least not if you ever so kindly make sure I don't overdo it."

"Oh, now you're making this hard for me," Varric mused and remembered her mother was there. "Which of course means there's no chance in hell I'll bite that weak bait."

"I'm surprised you would turn down a chance for a good story," Fenris suddenly said to him. Hawke could guess that was code for, "Good for you that you're the only one who hasn't let himself be deceived."

"There's always time," Varric said. "And better stories."

"Aw, now I'm wounded," Hawke said sarcastically. "Now I really need something to sink my sorrows in."

"Well, it's your choice," Leandra said nonchalantly. "I'm good as long as you don't start a fire."

"That has been known to happen," Fenris said. Varric now was the one to cough subtly for him to not continue that sentence. Fenris saw that and pressed his lips in annoyance, then looked at her mother. "Do not worry, I will make sure she stays away from the poison."

_Seriously? Now you talk?_ Hawke thought in annoyance. She rapidly scowled and said, "Might wanna check yourself for poison first."

"No, I'm good," Fenris said flatly, without looking at her.

"Well, this as far as I go," Leandra said and got up. "Happy name day again Varric. I hope you all have fun."

After Varric schmoozed Leandra again with compliments and gratitude and what not and everyone headed out of the mansion, she stopped Hawke in the doorway. "What did you do?"

"Huh?" Hawke asked while frowning.

"He doesn't seem alright," Leandra whispered in concern.

She scowled even more. "Oh, and you automatically assume I have something to do with it?"

"Not unless there's a good reason for me to think that," Leandra said firmly and pointed at the door.

Hawke rolled her eyes and her shoulders sank. "Fine, I did that."

"He wasn't pleased," Leandra said perceptively.

"Not pleased is seriously sugar-coating it," Hawke replied grouchily.

"Well, I know you probably won't listen to me –"

"Yeah, I probably won't," Hawke cut her grumpily.

Leandra pressed her lips in annoyance and continued, " – but you shouldn't let yourself be angry. He'll calm down tomorrow."

"Tyea,  _tomorrow,_ " Hawke said sarcastically. "There aren't enough tomorrows for this one."

"I don't believe that," Leandra said. "And I think you already knew the consequences when you took up this duty."

"I know what I was getting into," Hawke said flatly, her face tense but impenetrable.

"Alright," Leandra said softly and she looked down. She understood she meant with everything. "You know best. Be careful."

"Good night, Mother," Hawke said unemotionally and started to walk. She turn her head sideways and tried to say, "Thanks for –"

"Anytime, love," Leandra said with a smile. "Do have fun."

"I'll… try," Hawke said.

"Oh, I know you'll both be alright," Leandra said reassuringly with a warm smile. Then she took off and shouted proudly, "Serah Bodhan, Serah Sandal, let us go home!"

_Yep, this is going to suck,_ Hawke thought and took off to Lowtown and caught up with the others.

 


	47. The Hanged Man: Better Never Than Late

**Sunset, Down the stairs to Lowtown**

Progress just means bad things happen faster, Hawke used to think. Of course, while the statement seemed to be perfectly universal and thriving in its wisdom,  _irony_ was also a concept that did very well on its own and above all other principles. Especially above all those who did not yet learn to taste the deliciousness of Lord Irony. In so, you could say she laughed at herself that she … did not laugh at the irony. Yes the progressive dinner, as it progressed… with that little "progress" at her hand… really made bad things happen faster. Of course, progress in science and magic left a permanent mark on the world and if it broke, it stayed broken all while the most intelligent minds argued with each other in pretentious accents and mighty pointed fingers of judgement, and the other ten minutes that were left of their busy day were reserved for actually trying to find a solution to correct their blunders.

Meanwhile the apocalypse came and restored the world to its original peace.

How this applied to her situation… maybe it was safe to say that  _the apocalypse_ was at bay the moment they would enter the Hanged Man. Surely there was some irony to the name now.

The bigger irony was her thinking that she and Fenris really could design with marvellous exactitude the allegory of the beginning of the universe – In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

Although the universe was a little more economic, having exploded only once and then expanding until something else of titanic importance happened until the world became only dust again. They were a little more stubborn in this respect, not minding a few extra burns until nothingness came. The good part of this equation was, that they were much clever than the universe, in that they made every little explosion count, and with that, tracing them all back to the original Explosion – they would conclude that the explosions were not really connected and there was no god and no truth, and the only thing that  _really_ mattered were the little things like tea, and pie, the sound of laughter, that basket hilts were infinitely stupid, and finding out who could drink dragon's blood whisky longer directly from the bottle before their throats horrifically burned. But the stupidity of basket hilts was most important.

With this positive thought relieving her extreme fit of broodiness, but not enough to bring her mouth to actually open, she walked with the others down the stairs to Lowtown.

Of course, it was not a very reassuring thought that the best she could hope for was for Fenris to be scowling and  _hmph_ -ing and sulking like he usually did when he had some particular inconvenience with her. But no, he did not grant her that kind of privilege. It was indeed, the worst sign of them all, that Fenris seemed wrapped into the rarest form of calmness she'd ever seen.

Sometimes it felt like an honor that he could get mad at her. Not because he looked like the most adorable creature crazed with bloodlust and murder in his eyes, but because he did not in fact lose his temper very often with anyone, or at least he didn't show it. If he did get angry, he'd only look you straight in the eye, slightly sharpen his tone, curl only one corner of his lips, mutter something in his mother tongue that one did not need a dictionary to know it was a curse, and on rare occasions look away and spit. Now it felt like the greatest honor to crawl into some dark pit and die, and preferably somewhere far away from those deeply calm eyes, for he could really kill someone only with his eyes, even after they had already died, and for the simplest reasons, like the unfortunate soul daring to stain his armor with their blood even if it happened by any chance that it was he who plunged the sword into their chest. She could bet this was the reason why he preferred shoving his fist into people's chests. He was such a neat guy.

But like a true warrior, she could never defy the principles that went with it. One was to be brave and resist under any circumstance, fight to the best of one's ability and nothing is going to stand between one and the thing you they was fighting for. And two, was that this always worked best when a cold pint of beer was the object of one's battle.

Finally, she forgot about everything else and caught up with Varric. "Putting everything on your tab tonight?"

"Hm. Not likely," Varric responded. "Like I said, my plate is full."

"Then get another plate," said Hawke. "Surely you can steal one from Coriff."

"The things I stole from that guy," Varric muttered and shook his head. "There's nothing left  _to_ steal anymore."

"So you pay the guy, but you also steal from the guy," Hawke said with mockery in her tone. "Good investment."

"Well I'm an honest thief," Varric said with a smile. "I pay my fair share, and it's like I'm stealing from myself. I steal the coin back, and it's like I'm doing myself justice."

"That's so contradictory," Hawke said and pondered on it as they walked. "Oh, I get it, because it's so messed up there's no way of tracing back who's at fault, therefore it's honest thievery."

"It's honest because I admit to being messed up in the head while I do it," Varric responded with the most elusive smile.

"My kind of guy," Hawke said proudly. "You could steal my heart one day and convince me you were simply taking it back to where it belonged in the first place."

"I could try," Varric said confidently and raised a finger, "but –"

" – you might waste a few centuries trying to find it," Fenris intervened calmly.

"Aw, what a perfectly disguised way of saying she's got big boobs," Varric fired back with a wink.

"Yes," Fenris said undaunted, his sharp tone drooping with sarcasm. "That's what I meant."

They continued walking, Hawke and Varric going at the head of the line all with tracing the outlines and principles of the so called "honest thievery". Isabela started driving Aveline mad, teasing her that not only did they dress the same, but they had so many other things in common like both being "Captain" and Merrill being fed up with their fight paced faster and caught up with Varric and Hawke. And so, Fenris and Anders were left behind, courtesy of Lord Fortune himself.

"Did someone try to dig and got the shovel back in their face?" Anders teased, his smirk growing dangerously close to begging for a punch.

"I have no idea what that means, but I personally invite you to try," Fenris replied insipidly.

"To dig or to get a shovel in my face?" Anders asked all smiles, walking beside him.

"Whichever shuts you up faster," Fenris answered unemotionally, his eyes remaining forward.

Anders chuckled. "And I haven't even started talking about mages yet."

"I thought I'd do us both a favor and save some time," Fenris said coldly.

"Ah, but it won't matter in the end will it? It's not like you'll remember any of this by tomorrow," Anders said.

"What a blessing," Fenris muttered. He walked faster and left him behind.

As he dodged the Guard-Captain vs Ship-Captain war and caught up with the others, he heard Varric say, "Still weird."

Then Hawke chuckled. "And here I thought today would be different, you know, what with weird being technically our standard of normal."

"Today  _is_ different, highness," Varric protested. "You're pretty, Broody turned into Lord Broodsworthy, Blondie's turned into Monserre Beufort and the two ladies back there turned into The Twin Captains of the Void." He pressed his lips and nodded to himself. "So by our standards of normal, this is weird."

"I'm… pretty," Hawke muttered. "So usually I'm what?"

"I feel like that's a trick question," Varric said all smiles again.

She grinned. "Well, it's a tricky answer."

"Hm." Varric beckoned at Fenris. "Help me out here, Lord. How can we define what Hawke usually looks like."

Fenris lifted his eyebrows in an unimpressed, bored expression and muttered, "Without definition."

"I have no idea how I should take that," Hawke said in amusement.

Varric shot him an annoyed glance, as if to say "Yeah, you were of so much help" and turned his look at Hawke, scratching behind his ear. "What he means is that you usually look uh, well,  _beautiful_  – "

" – like a forest fire," Fenris said coldly, without shifting his gaze. "Beautiful to admire from a distance."

" – but dangerous to stare at close," Varric finished, smiling. "Yeah, that… sounds about right."

Hawke frowned and seemed to be battling between the possible meanings of what they said.

"Oh, cheer up, Pantaloons," Varric said in amusement and patted her on the hip. "It was a compliment. Right, my Lord?"

"That depends on how you look at it," said Fenris.

She narrowed her eyes, but quickly patted Varric on the shoulder and said, "Well, there's no one else I'd rather try to be pretty for."

"Oh, but you don't really try, do you?" Varric asked. "If you did you'd have make-up on and the cleavage to distract us from it."

"Is that a compliment or a complaint?" Hawke asked, starting to grin.

"A little of both maybe," said Varric. "I lie a lot, so don't take my word for it."

"How true," Hawke mumbled. But inside she thought, "Yep, gotta have my make up on, in case I run into Fenris and he wants to beat the shit out of me. Gotta look my best! Maybe he'll punch me repeatedly in the kidneys and the stomach so it doesn't mark up my face. He's so thoughtful!"

Varric's confident voice snapped her from her thoughts. "All that's left is if you could cut some of that length off those legs, then you'd be mine."

"I knew there was something in the way," said Hawke, pretending to turn sad. "What if I start walking on my knees, would that do?"

Fenris immediately snorted. "If it doesn't, could you try that anyway?"

"For you my Lord," Hawke started and moved her hand on her chest. "It's gonna cost."

"As much as I'd pay to see that, I want tonight to be devoid of any sort of humiliation, more than it has already, uh," said Varric, shaking his hand towards Fenris and the others. "You know, considering."

"Well, this does seem like a circus parade," Fenris agreed calmly. "And I am sad at the thought that I cannot witness it from afar."

"Ah-hem," Varric coughed and shot him a contemptuous look. "Said the elf in the coat of frock."

"More like the coat of mock," said Hawke and started to chuckle. "Mock of frock."

"Have you considered giving your band a name, Hawke?" Fenris asked. "Perhaps Dawn of the Clowns?"

"Oh, don't limit yourself Fenris, you can be anything you wish," Hawke said joyfully with a smirk on her face.

"I guess it is a bit silly to follow in the leader's footsteps, isn't it?" Fenris said calmly, stopping in front of the Hanged Man.

Hawke drew up a sharp fake smile as she stopped. "Frock you."

Well, if he was  _attempting_ to joke, despite overestimating his abilities, surely there was some hope reserved. Surely you  _could_ depend on Lord Fortune, right?

"Oh shit," Varric cursed, putting his hands up on his head. "I forgot to get my shipment from Pip!"

"Say what?" Hawke asked with a raised eyebrow.

Varric sighed. "I got a nice deal on some drinks from Orzammar, but then you surprised me with the dinner party and I totally forgot. And Lirene's shop is closing."

"Lirene's?" Hawke asked. "As in Lirene's Ferelden Imports?"

"Well Orzammar is in Ferelden, highness," said Varric, but Hawke's unconvinced eyebrow made him continue, "Alright, I ordered some Ferelden  _local_ drinks too. It was supposed to be a surprise."

"On your own name day," Hawke said in amusement. "You're unbelievable."

"Unbelievably thoughtful, why yes I am," Varric said with a wink. He scrutinized the group. "Well I gotta get inside, so I need two muscles to go get it and fast. Lord, Captain, what do you say?"

"Hey, I'm muscle too," Hawke protested and crossed her arms. "And don't forget I'm Overseer of Varric's Incredible Fun Day of Fun."

"Well, Overseer, if that means so much to you, then off you go," Varric said with a raised eyebrow, then opened the door to go in. He stuck his head out again and his sudden rapid voice dizzied her as she didn't automatically look somewhere down south. "Oh, tell Pip you're coming on behalf of Red Lizard."

"Yes _s_ ir! … Whatever that means," Hawke mused, and beckoned for Aveline. "Let's go."

"I'll pass," said Aveline nervously. She scratched behind her ear as if she was embarrassed. "Brenan's patrolling tonight…" She looked down at her clothes. "I don't want her to see me like this."

"Seriously? Can't the Captain have fun on her day off? It's not like you're sacrificing cats to the Old God Dumat, not that I would mind," Hawke said in outrage. "Jeez, I'll go by myself."

She turned around, half about to stumble. Fenris was leaning with his back against the wall and his arms crossed. "I'll go with you," he said, his voice sounding as if this was some honorable sacrifice of great inconvenience.

Not the time to protest. Varric was a big spender. Surely there was more than one package of booze. She continued to walk and he followed in silence.

The Market street was usually a busy place by day, but during the last month there was almost no passing trade. The street was if not a dead end, then at least seriously wounded by the area's change in fortunes, and for some reason Aveline decided to blame her, as if she had anything to do with it! The real reason why this was happening was because the street was cursed.

Yes, cursed. Over the years, few businesses apart from the weaponsmithy and the trinket shop and perhaps Lirene's Ferelden Imports (the lower part of the Market District, understand, the one where the sunlight wasn't able to bless, perhaps) had managed to survive for long. There were a lot of warehouses and backyards purchased, robbed, sold, repurchased and so on, the cycle of bad luck went, because there was always some dumb merchant with a new enterprise that they thought would be the next big thing and ended up being one day away from being the next big flop. The dwarf, Javaris, was perhaps the most enterprisingly unsuccessful businessman of them all and he was surely lying dead in a gutter somewhere eaten by rats, but there had been other unfortunate businesses that had gone yahoo-barnacle-shaped very fast. Like Bartholomeo's (Not) Fastidious Fine Cheeses or Agamemnon's Praising Puppet Shop or Xavier's Incredible Inkwells (she would never understand why they had to use names beginning with the same letter, but she suspected  _that_ was the cursing recipe for disaster) and they all sunk faster than the Qunaris' ship, and in opposition, causing the other steady businesses on the street to suffer longer than the Qunaris' stay thereafter. Catching strong roots that would never ever perish, it seemed, much like the horn-headed mammoths.

And apart from that curse, there was also the part where a coven of blood mages were discovered to have been operating in the backrooms of Agamemnon's Praising Puppet Shop. And that was  _not_ a good day for business. No one would have ever noticed, really, until some mangled beef-witted barnacle of a mage decided it would be a good idea to use an ancient demonic tome on a full moon without consulting the others and it all went downhill from there. Well, downhill  _and_ uphill. Giant flocks of possessed curly fair-haired terrifying little dolls and face-painted jesters storming the streets of Lowtown up to Hightown, doing their March of Horror along with shades and what  _some people_ swore were hideous purple monsters with uncounted heads and eyes (even the Templars face-palmed themselves at that one). But unfortunately, the mishap still reinforced the firm grasp of the Templars to further tighten their collars on the idea that there was a vast mage  _conspiracy_ in Kirkwall to overthrow their rule. There was always a dumb cult somewhere –and if there wasn't they would invent one – that solely sought the right circumstances to make magic rise again and conquer everything and all.  _Thus_ spoke the puppets, thus the currish sponge-brained burly Templars hence concluded,  _on their own_.

And the Viscount was not happy. Not that he ever seemed to be happy, what with poking his feather in the inkwell all day, wondering how such a sorcery was possible, and at the same time not making any connection with the striking news that there had been a serious shortage of octopuses in the Waking Sea as the latest fishing manifests in the Docks had albeit stated. Between these moments of contemplation, he was constantly bombarded with civil issues by 8:30 in the morning, shortly thereafter at 8:31 the Knight-Commander's complaints and endless petitions were flooding and burning his office, so by 8:32 and a half (the half was important) there was a high chance  _every day_  that the one little hair at the top of his head was going to strangle itself to death, but not before miraculously gaining the ability to speak for itself – unlike the Viscount, who had yet to develop this ability – and its last words would be, "Curse you Meredith, you calumnious toad-spotted guts-gripping infectious harlot, you… you paranoid mammering hedge-born Void-hated flax wench! I curse you and I curse whoever created you!"

Mind you, the Viscount did seem the kind of fellow that lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a shovel.

Understand, despite the Viscount's hideous inability to meet any of his title's prerogatives, his lament was very justified when it came to some of Kirkwall's inexplicable catastrophes that always made a tradition to coming up every few months. The spirit of Kirkwall really was a loyal lad when it came to preserving the legacy of mind-blowing and blood-freezing mysteries and mishaps. And in that respect, you could understand that in his eyes, it would be nice to think that  _someone,_ somewhere in this city was engaged into some simple, harmless little business that was  _not_ going to end up causing tentacled monsters, horrid abominations and dread apparitions to stalk the streets eating people.

Well, the sun was setting between the high buildings, the few rays still darting in their eyes, and there were flocks of blackbirds chirruping above, flying in perfect V-shaped formations. The street was empty. And that annoying sound became louder and louder, the sound of not talking, that is. She rolled her eyes and muttered towards him, "Still calmly pissed at me, trying to make my brain explode with your mind?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about, Princess." He tilted his head and half curtseyed when he said the last word.

"That! That is what I am talking about," Hawke exclaimed and pointed at him. "Since we ran into the others you have been cold and more arrogant than usual."

"Is that so?" Fenris asked calmly. "I would say I was averagely arrogant."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're stubborn – anyone ever tell you that before?"

"On occasion," Fenris replied.

* * *

**10 harrowing minutes later, The Hanged Man**

The Hanged Man was a tavern, of sorts. Remarkably, it was the most successful business in Lowtown, but Varric might have had something to do with it. After all, calling your tavern The Hanged Man was not a decision to feature in the Great Advertising & Marketing Decisions of History. Hanging an actual giant puppet of a hanged man above the tavern doors wasn't either, but the citizens of this city were a bit more curious and regarded themselves as brave, something none of their friends would agree upon unless until pint number five.

Its owner was Coriff, a thin, dry, mostly silent and peaceful-looking man who only smiled when he herd news of some serious murder (you could see why he chose the name without scruples). He was very loyal to his most loyal customers, and Varric was very happy with this arrangement, because Coriff was the kind of guy who no dwarf would stare sternly in the groin unless he was genuinely fearless or extremely stupid; well, those usually went hand-in-hand. The angry members of the Merchants Guild had quickly ceased in trying to find Varric at The Hanged Man because of this and that was part of the reason why whenever Hawke couldn't find him there, she would go search for him at the Chantry first, and  _then_ look for him at Fenris.

At present, the tavern was changed. Dark and lit only by some new red and gold lanterns hung up on the walls. And it was full of people, most of them not looking like drunken rank gutter boar-pigs or lumpish idle-headed old measles or dim-witted misogynistic brazen-faced malt-worms. She had a lot of names like that for the good citizens that highly frequented this place and her patience. It was surprising, but half of the loyal customers here were lowlife misfits, and the other half were guards who wanted to go somewhere they wouldn't be reminded that they were men of the law. This was rather beneficial, and adding Coriff, not even licensed thieves tried to rob The Hanged Man. He didn't like having his guards' drinking disturbed. On the other hand, they had never seen a bigger load of petty criminals than those wearing the Guard uniform. And this was depressing, it really was.

But the people present, mostly dwarves, were dressed rather nicely, brown coats, linen shirts, pocket belts and a lot of daggers, but still nice. And most of them probably hidden. This was Varric's bit to save his ass from running from the Merchants Guild, maybe. Either that or he decided mingling and drinking with the Carta was a bit to save his ass from running from the Merchants Guild. Perhaps he warned them that the Captain of the Guard was here somewhere in disguise (which was true) so no dwarf could afford to mistreat him, and in turn, he was buying them ale. And no dwarf could ever turn down free ale.

"Did you ship your whole cast here from Orzammar too?" Hawke asked Varric, as she and Fenris put down the heavy loads. "Cause I'm rather happy I didn't have to carry them too."

Of course, she was careful not to speak too loud, because everyone in this city knew what happens if you call a dwarf anything from 'short stuff' to 'Serah Carry-miah'.

"Oh, yousofunny," Varric mumbled in a botched Orlesian accent. "You're short too, by human standards at least."

"Not if I wear boots, then I'm average height," Hawke corrected. "And you can't say the same for yourself."

"Actually I'm taller than most dwarves," Varric said proudly. "Lord Broodsworthy here is also taller than most elves. You on the other hand…"

"Am craving a drink from this box," said Hawke, bashing it open. She lifted her eyebrows, albeit losing all expression. "Holy Mother of Andraste."

"Say  _Thank you, Varric_ ," he said all-grinning. He remembered it was Ferelden's Independence Day soon. The Hanged Man had never seen a fat rise in customers unlike during Fereldan's Independence Day. And everyone knew what that meant when Hawke was around. An endless, horrific, insanely loud night of heavy drinking and singing, bar fights (some she caused) and then make-up drinking and some more singing, granted more incoherent singing because some of them had lost teeth on the way. This was Hawke's idea of a helluvagood night. Everyone resolved, after the first time they saw this, that they would suddenly become busy that day of the year.

She lifted some of the bottles and scrutinized them in wonder. "Alright, you're insane. Greenfell ginger ale, Killarney rum, Bärenfang, Blackwood whiskey…" She almost stuck her head in all the way in the box. Fenris almost couldn't contain his urge to kick her inside. "Applejack!" she shouted, coming with two bottles. "And Chasind palinka?" She chuckled. "You're positively insane, Varric."

"Well I hear Fereldens know their booze," Varric said with a smile. "And a special day needs special drinks for special crazy people like you and me." So basically, if Hawke went Ferelden, the dwarves would have yet another reason to stay put in their seats and act as if they were nice, which was perhaps the second commandment in their Merchant Manual. The first was 'Always remember to learn your testimony to the Guards forwards  _and_ backwards, so they won't know you're lying about where you were the other night'. Understand, the members of the Merchants Guild were really nice-looking people who called you 'friend'. People like that weren't friendly.

"Jägermeister?!" Hawke shouted, getting the last bottle out. She tackled Varric with a hug, and he could barely catch his breath. He did listen to her all these years in her drunken lament. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I need to give you your gift  _right now._ "

"Do not dare," Fenris cut her with an annoyed look on his face. "If we give him gifts now, like we did the last time, he'll vanish again within the hour."

"Look at this crowd!" Varric protested, stretching his arms out. "There's no way I could get away from here  _this_  time."

"Better safe than sorry," Fenris muttered, gathering some of the bottles.

"Aw, you can't go through the night without me, can you?" Varric mused all-grinningly. "I'm touched, elf. I promise I'll stay."

"You better," Fenris said cuttingly, and took off for their table.

"What's up with  _him,_ " Hawke wondered with a raised eyebrow, watching him go.

"He wants his only friend there so he won't get bored to death, I bet," Varric said with a wink. "Now, don't give me that look, you're fun too. Just not  _me_  fun."

"That's not why I was frowning," Hawke said with her eyes narrowed. "You were implying something, thou villainous ill-bred cheating reprobate."

"Milady, whatever do you mean!" Varric exclaimed wickedly, a bit of mockery in his tone as well, since she went hot-headed Ferelden on him before she had even started drinking. He winked again and took off to one of the tables full of loud dwarves.

_Oh great,_ Hawke thought. This was going to be a long night if Varric was playing the social bee, flying from table to table, probably never staying more than five minutes at theirs. He always got away with _vanishing._

She grabbed the Jägermeister bottle with all the might in her hand and figuratively dragged herself to the table. On the seat to the wall there was Isabela shuffling the cards and laughing about something with Anders, Merrill was listening and expectedly wondered if she missed the dirty part, Aveline was sitting at the head of the table already resolving to drink like half of her ancestors and "block out the yackety-yak" with Blackwood whiskey. Long night. She sighed and took a seat next to Fenris on the other side of the table. He was carefully scrutinizing the labels on the Ferelden bottles, and his eyes fell on the new one on the table. He grabbed it in an instant from her side of table and examined it.

"This is the hunter's badge of glory, that he protect and tend his quarry," Fenris stuttered as he read the label.

Hawke overlapped his voice and finished with him, "Hunt with honor, as is due, and through the beast be Maker true."

"The beast is a stag with a sun between its antlers?" Fenris asked in confusion, and put the bottle back on the table.

"It's in tribute to a legend of two hunters having a vision of the Andrastian sun between the antlers of a stag," Aveline explained and muttered mockingly, "And then they accepted Andraste."

"So it's a tribute to being drunk out of your mind and hallucinating holier-than-thou animal messengers," Fenris said grumpily.

Hawke took the bottle and clawed it open. She raised it and circled the symbol with her finger. "O – DEER – Maker."

Fenris chuckled lowly under his breath. "Clever."

"I can't be prouder for being Ferelden right now," Hawke said with a grin. She drank straight from the bottle, then closed her eyes. "Oh, sweet mother of darkness, once again I suckle at your juicy foul devilish tit."

"Benevise cælum," Fenris said with high lifted eyebrows.

She took another long passionate sip as he said it, then she exhaled aloud. "Exactly." She wiped her mouth with half-lidded eyes. "Let the nightmare begin."

"Let the games also begin," Isabela said with a wink, starting to deal the cards.

"I'm all for games!" Hawke shouted happily.

"Of course you are," Fenris muttered quietly under his breath, or at least that's what she thought she heard. Well… and here she thought they'd been getting along for the last five minutes. The paradise was short-lived, but she resolved to banish any thought or worry and have fun.

She couldn't do any worse, but then again, he couldn't do any better. So maybe it balanced out.

"You'd better make haste with losing or give up your coin right now," Isabela said confidently. "I'm running out of money. In a couple of weeks, I'm gonna be screwed."

"Why don't you hack some your jewelry?" said Hawke. "There's a lot of stuff you never wear and most of it is ugly."

"Don't you have some abandoned puppy to save?" Isabela fired back with narrowed eyes.

"Nope, it's my day off," said Hawke, taking another card. "I resolve to pull evil  _cats_ by the tail in my spare time."

"And yet you're followed by puppy-eyes wherever you go," Isabela said subtly, grinning to no end.

"I feel a  _scratch_ lurking somewhere in that sentence," Hawke said with a smile.

"I think the whole world knows what it means," said Isabela. " Even the table knows what it means."

"I don't know what it means," Anders said with a shrug.

"I don't either," said Merrill. "Is it something dirty?"

"That remains to be seen," Isabela mused. Fenris picked up on it and translated as mockery directed to him.

"Well, you know me," Hawke said with a shrug. "I'm an idiot at heart."

"Bitch, you really are," Isabela said in amusement.

" _Ga-row_." Hawke pretended to scratch the air.

"Now all I get from this is that you have something against cats," Anders intervened. "Whatever did they do to you?"

"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods," said Hawke, taking a large sip, then almost banged the table with the bottle. "They have not forgotten this."

"I think cats are adorable," said Merrill. "I'm surprised my people don't worship them."

"Yeah, here's how it was in our creed," Hawke cut her, gesturing mockingly and looking up. "After the Maker made spirits and demons, and they turned out to be major fails, he created people. And while he overestimated his ability with that one too, he then sat one day in his bigass throne in the sky and wondered 'What can I make in this world that would truly make living worthwhile?' He  _really_ thought about it. 'CATS!' he said eventually. 'CATS ARE NICE'."

"They  _are_ nice," Anders protested grumpily with his arms crossed.

"Anders… if cats looked like toads, you'd realize what nasty, evil little bastards they are," Hawke said with a serious face. She pointed at him mockingly. "Style. That's what people remember."

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Hawke," Anders protested again.

"Indeed, beauty is in the eye of the beholder," said Hawke, sipping from her bottle. "And it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."

Fenris tried to contain his laughter. Anders rolled his eyes and said, "A bit prejudiced, are we not?"

"Preposterous! I am free of prejudice," Hawke objected calmly. "I hate everyone equally."

"Said the diligent savior of all those wounded," Isabela muttered contemptuously.

"Yes, I help people. That doesn't mean I have to love them," said Hawke. "Mankind is a blessing and all; it's the people in it that I have a problem with."

"So you do hate mages  _and_ Templars," said Anders. "How truly contradictory and again, hypocritical of you."

"Are they people?" Hawke asked unemotionally without looking at him, taking another card. "I stand my ground."

"Doesn't that follow that you should hate yourself too?" Anders pressed ever so passionately.

"Well, what does that accomplish?" Hawke asked. "Hours over hours wasted sinking in your own misery. Nah, I'd rather sit here and drink my dinner."

"Isn't that about the same thing?" Anders asked in amusement.

"No, I do it happily," said Hawke. "I happily drink my dinner with happiness, joy, flappy wings and eternal wonder for the world."

"While hating people," Anders finished, shaking his head. "I feel like I'm speaking to a wall."

Isabela smirked. "Do you hate the elves too, Hawke?"

She took a large sip and raised a hand to the sky. "Elves are wonderful! They provoke wonder. And they're marvelous too! They cause marvels." She took another large sip to harrow with the waiting. Fenris was giving her an unimpressed look. She wiped her mouth and continued in a melodic, joyful tone, "And they're truly fantastic and enchanting. They create fantasies and weave enchantments."

"Do they now?" Fenris asked calmly, seeming more focused on the game than anything.

Hawke smirked. "The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning." She took another good sip. "I never said elves were nice."

"Oh, I found the snake alright, belatedly even so," Fenris muttered in intentional double meanings himself.

"What do you have against my people?" Merrill protested. She could feel the story of Arlathan and its demise coming again to infect her ears.

Hawke shrugged. "I didn't say I had anything against elves, Merrill."

"Yeah, don't fret Merrill, she doesn't have anything particularly special against you or your people," Anders said grumpily. "She hates everyone equally."

"Nothing to retort, Fenris?" Isabela asked. "Or do you hate everybody too?"

Fenris shrugged unemotionally. "I do not disagree with what she said."

"Emphasis on not disagreeing," Isabela said in amusement. "So you don't agree either. You're just living somewhere in empty space, free of all convictions except for those about mages."

"I do not particularly care," said Fenris, rolling his eyes.

"Well in this respect, you and Hawke should hold hands and take off in the black, black sunset together," Merrill said in annoyance. My, she did annoy her. This was sign the jäger kicked in.

"Why are we discussing pointless philosophies over Wicked Grace?" Fenris asked irately. "Just shut up and play."

"Well, for one, it's what people usually do when they had a few," said Anders. "And for two, I'd like to know my student better."

"Three years working with Hawke and now you choose to know her better," Fenris protested insipidly.

"Better late than never," Anders said nonchalantly. "Do you have a problem with that, Hawke?"

"Other than the fact that it's stupid, no," Hawke said with a shrug. "What would that accomplish?"

"Well, my, whatever could that accomplish," Anders said mockingly. He tightened his crossed arms and shrugged. "We  _could_ be friends, for example."

"We  _could_ be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing elephants from the Seheron jungles, but we're not," Hawke said calmly, and shrugged. "At least, I'm not."

Fenris broke into laughter. That melodic sound was the only thing she could hear in the world by then and everything else was blocked out and didn't matter. Damn him, but yippee that she made him laugh.

"Do you often use stings solely to push people away?" Anders asked sarcastically.

"Yes, I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain," Hawke said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

"Anything else we should know that isn't so obvious?" Anders pressed mockingly.

Finally she let the bottle down and said, "Well, I must disappoint you. There's nothing much to know about me. Two things mostly: The first is that I am deeply suspicious of people in general and it is in my nature to expect the worst of them. And second is that I am unexpectedly good at knitting."

"Well if you don't give people a chance, how could they ever impress you?" Anders muttered sarcastically.

"Are you familiar with the schools of ancient philosophy, Anders?" Hawke asked calmly.

"More or less," Anders replied.

"Mine is a mixture of the three most badass schools – the cynics, the stoics and the epicureans." She took a large sip again. "I can sum them up in one phrase – you can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, be him human, elf, dwarf, mage, Templar, whatever, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink."

She was thrown off when Fenris suddenly bumped his bottle into hers. "So… in that respect," Hawke continued, looking at Fenris in confusion, and coughed shortly. "Cheers."

"So you help people indiscriminately unless they are evil," said Anders. "But you don't believe there's a chance for justice to thrive and for the greater good to win and make peace."

Many people could say things in a cutting way, but Fenris could  _listen_ in a cutting way. He could make something sound stupid just by hearing it. "Men before you had already said things like 'peace in our time' or 'a free nation that will last a thousand years'," he intervened in a tired voice, "And less than half a lifetime later no one even remembered who they were, let alone what they had said," he paused to take a sip of whiskey, "or where the mob had buried their ashes."

"Then what about your precious Andraste who freed the slaves?" Anders asked. "Did her deeds not seem worthwhile, even if she was burned at the stake?"

Fenris curled his lips in annoyance. "Unless you prove to me that I magically hallucinated being tortured and enslaved in our present times, you have no argument."

"Oh yeah, Andraste. That story is open to interpretation." Hawke snorted. "She was imprisoned, tortured, ridiculed, burned at the stake. She looked up at the sky in tears and asked, 'Why Maker? Why hast thou forsaken me? After everything I've done for you!' and the Maker showed himself between the clouds, narrowed his eyes and mumbled, 'Well, there's just something about you that pisses me off. Here's a blade through your chest for free.'"

"Well, everything works out in time, but one needs to press and push repeatedly for change to happen," Anders objected passionately, ignoring Hawke. "If you sit around and mope about it of course nothing happens, Legion Commander."

"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people," Fenris argued, taking a sip from the bottle. "You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides."

"There's just no talking to you, is there?" Anders snorted and rolled his eyes. "You just let one bad experience color your judgment. At least Hawke has a bit more open-mindedness what with 'hating' people equally, expecting anyone to be capable of bad things, but I know that little comment you made was about mages in particular."

"It was not, in fact, directed to mages," said Fenris with half-lidded eyes, but then they tightened as they fixed upon him. "Or anyone in particular."

"But you do hold mages as the most dangerous," Anders said with narrowed eyes.

"Well, when ordinary men will be capable of raising the dead from the ground, you can immediately add them to my list of enemies," Fenris replied nonchalantly.

"Well if all people stuck their head inside a box like you do and locked themselves in it voluntarily no wonder doom is coming upon us," Anders said in exasperation.

"I will be more enthusiastic about people thinking outside the box when there is evidence of any thinking going on inside it," Fenris uttered with mockery in his tone.

"And the trouble with having an open mind, of course," Hawke added, to get Anders off her back, "is that people will insist on coming along trying to put things in it."

"Like universal truths that some people are evil and some people are simply good, no matter what they are?" Anders asked while rolling his eyes.

Fenris almost banged his bottle against the table after he took a large sip of whiskey. Then he started, "Now why do you people try to define others as simply good or simply evil?" He rolled his eyes and sighed. "No? No answer?" He took another sip. "Because no one wishes to admit that compassion and cruelty exist side-by-side in one heart. And that anyone is capable of anything."

"I feel the Angel of Death coming," Hawke muttered grumpily, before Anders could fire back and really set fire to the table. "And take those cards out from under your skirt, Isabela."

She curled her lips and rolled her eyes, "Fine, I fold."

"Me too," said Merrill. Aveline threw the cards straight on the table.

"I raise you 50," Hawke said confidently. She threw a cigarillo on the table, possibly waiting to be smoked in victory.

Anders and Fenris narrowed their eyes at each other, as if they telepathically agreed that there was no chance in hell that either of them would fold. They raised too.

"Well, well," Hawke said with a grin. She slowly picked the next card without showing it yet. "Could this be… The Angel of Death?" She turned it around, it was in fact it.

They showed their hands. Anders had two serpents, one dagger and one knight. Fenris had two knights, one song and a dagger. Hawke was all happy and evil smiles, showing four songs and a knight.

"My, you really were bluffing then," Hawke said to Fenris, lighting up the cigarillo of triumph. "Varric is gonna go bonkers when he finds out."

"However did you know?" Fenris said sarcastically.

"You always do that thing when you have a weak hand," Hawke said with a smile, puffing out circles in his face. "You know."

"What do I do?" he asked, frowning heavily and dodging the circles.

"Oh, well, if you don't know, how stupid would it be of me to tell you," she said and winked.

"Hmph," he muttered.

"You mad?" Isabela mused and winked at him. "Think about this way. I've been dethroned. It's a good day."

"Oh, how shocking," Fenris muttered sarcastically.

"Don't be so grumpy, Fen," Isabela snarled. "Next thing you know you'll be whining and giving me puppy dog eyes."

"Whatever eyes I give you, they will always be stamped with indifference," Fenris retorted coldly, drinking away again.

"To me maybe, but to my cleavage your eyes say otherwise," Isabela said with a wink.

Fenris smirked, then resumed his impenetrable expression and raised his bottle. "Summer is officially coming to an end and you know what that means." He took a large nonchalant sip and resumed calmly, "All you half naked ladies are going to have to find a personality."

Hawke immediately snorted, but Isabela wasn't pleased. She snarled, "I wager not even the cold winds of change could dethrone you from your grouchiness."

"It is hot outside," Fenris said flatly.

"So we're doomed," Isabela concluded. She shrugged and dealt the cards again.

"I do wish Kirkwall would be blessed with some colder airs," Hawke complained in dismay. "It certainly wouldn't kill Lord Fortunate to make some effort and brighten up my days, would it?"

"Compared to Minrathous, you have nothing to complain," Fenris said nonchalantly.

"I come from a place close to eternal winter, Fenris," Hawke protested in irritation.

Fenris rolled his eyes. "And I come from a place where in times of summer such as these, even I who am attuned to it, could cook my left testicle by standing."

You could see how things were fairly dire when Fenris started using words in the trade tongue regarding genitalia with absolutely no shame whatsoever.

"Well then I don't recommend visiting Ferelden anytime soon," Hawke said nonchalantly. "Your right testicle would surely fall off straight from the cold."

"Well, good to know," Fenris muttered.

"Well, I'm going to get myself some tea," Anders announced in defeat over the testicle discussion, and got up from the table. "Anyone else need anything?"

"I'd like a pint of ale," Fenris said coldly.

"What's the magic word?" Anders said and crossed his arms in waiting.

Fenris shrugged. "I don't know. Hurry?"

* * *

_**When Varric came to the table…** _

He came at the other head of the table, a bit drunk and extremely happy. His cheeks were flushed and he immediately got a cigar out of his jacket.

"Light me up, Hawke," Varric demanded. "You know, if I didn't already call you by your last name, this would've sounded much more badass."

"You could've said 'Light me up, Bianca', but that would've been just weird," Hawke said joyfully. Varric seemed tense as well as happy. "How's it going…?"

"I hate dwarves," Varric mumbled quickly.

Hawke pretended to gasp. " _Even_  the cute dwarven girls?"

Varric shrugged grumpily. "All dwarves have beards and wear up to twelve layers of clothing. Gender is more or less optional."

"And that solves the mystery of why you turned to crossbows for your manly passion?" Fenris asked in amusement.

"All the  _pretty_ dwarven girls are mostly in Orzammar or in high-class whorehouses," Varric complained. He shrugged again. "You could see how that's a little inconvenient."

Fenris chuckled. "Because you stand your ground – see that is a  _good_ pun – that you are a non-conformist when it comes to your heritage, but you are a man of traditional values when it comes to having to pay for it?"

"Aren't you  _exactly_ the same, elf?" Varric fired back.

Fenris pressed his lips. "Hm. Good point."

Varric was a bit too hyper. He already had something else to talk about and started eagerly, "Have you guys noticed that it's common for people to say, 'I'm rather offended by that'."

Hawke was about to open her mouth, but Varric continued with flame in his tone, "As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more…than a whine." He flung his arms out in mockery and cited, " 'I find that offensive.'" He rolled his eyes. "It has no meaning! It has no purpose! It has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that'." He flung his arms out again. "Well so fucking what."

"Let me guess. Your new book full of crazy embellishments and fantastical stories is out and it's already offended people," Aveline muttered grumpily.

"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one," Varric said calmly.

"That's not the point, Varric," Aveline protested.

Varric raised his palm out to cut her. " _My_ point is that I am fully aware that some of the stuff I write is going to offend people or piss them off." He placed his elbows on the table and blew the smoke up above his head. "They should be fully aware that I don't really give a damn."

"You should be careful, Varric, this isn't a very open-minded city," said Aveline.

Varric shrugged. "I couldn't hack it in Orlais. My writing wasn't bad enough."

"Which one did you publish?" Fenris asked.

"Hard in Hightown, Vol.2," Varric said proudly. "And no, Guard-Captain, I will not tell you who Donnen Brennicovick is modelled after or if that is even true. Or the others. But most of them are."

"I won't be hearing the end of it tomorrow," Aveline said with a sigh. "Curse you, Varric."

"Now I'm a bit worked up 'cause I don't know how to start volume three," Varric complained, ignoring Aveline completely.

"Is it the last one?" Fenris asked.

"Well now who in the Void and in their right mind would write quadrupologies?" Varric asked in sweet outrage.

"Thou who art not sane, of course," Hawke said courteously.

"Hm. You're going hot-headed Ferelden soon, aren't you?" Varric said with a grin. "Well, before that calamity of the world occurs, help me out here. How should I start?"

"You want to piss your readers off  _really_ hard for your last book?" Hawke mused. She looked up and thought about it. "How about this: 'Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of the Guard. But I repeat myself.'"

Varric laughed. "That's good, but I don't write in the first person or address to my audience."

"Then start up with something about Donnen that makes him this gloomy, tired badass that's getting too old for his shit," Hawke said. "Like 'Donnen leaned against the wall and lit a cigar. Smoking was his one vice. At least, it was his only vice that he thought of as vice. The others were just job skills.'"

"Hm. That could work," Varric said, staring in blank, obviously picturing it and probably adding imaginary red marks all over the imaginary phrase in front of his eyes. "Could you tell me that again tomorrow when I'm sober?"

"Now how could I ever promise that when I'm probably more wasted than you are," Hawke said in amusement.

"Elf?" Varric pleaded.

Fenris shrugged and drank again. "You're on your own, Tethras."

But Varric already resolved to unburden himself from worries. He quickly digressed. "Gosh, Hawke, can you believe it? You were up to your neck in debt three years ago."

"About two months in after that we were only up to our ass," Hawke added.

" – which was rather a triumphant victory in such a short time – " Varric also added.

" – and short-lived. We reached flat broke by the time we set off for the Deep Roads –"

" – then you became piss rich just in time for Satinalia," Varric finished.

Hawke raised her bottle nonchalantly. "Oh, the holiday miracles."

"I miss Junior," Varric said and pressed his lips. "How's he doing with the big-shot Wardens?"

She curled her lips with discomfort, which Fenris noticed, but then she resumed her smile. "He couldn't be better."

"You're not a very good liar when you're drunk," Varric whispered with a warm smile. "And I'm not talking about what you said, but rather about what you did not in fact say."

"I'm also not that drunk, so that's bad," Hawke muttered.

"Not really," Varric said sweetly. "I mean, you're already a bit nuts, so it's not gonna take long before the spirits kick in for real."

She raised the bottle in a toast. "And then the real nightmare begins."

Varric titled his head to look past her at Fenris. "How's it going there, Lord?"

"Business is good," Fenris answered, raising his pint, but his tone denoted utter boredom.

Varric came closer to Hawke, leaning on the corner of the table, and whispered, "Are you deliberately ignoring him, or is he deliberately ignoring you?"

Hawke shrugged and whispered back grumpily, "Both. Neither. I don't know."

"… Those  _are_  the three answers," Varric whispered back. "Something happen?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." She pressed her lips and lifted her eyebrows.

He immediately nodded with a historically familiar spark in his eyes. "I'll – "

"No," Hawke cut him, squeezing his arm a bit too harshly. "Stay out of it."

"But I must know!" Varric protested.

"Well, get used to disappointment, highness," Hawke snarled firmly.

"Fine," Varric muttered, fixing his eyes and narrowing them on her. "I gotta go schmooze a guy with my pretend-cousin over there. If I'm back and this is still going on, I'm butting in whether you like it or not."

"Fine," Hawke said cuttingly. "Move your ass before I smite you."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Varric mumbled. "See ya."

As soon as he disappeared, Hawke clutched at the table, banged twice and sighed once. She looked at Fenris. "So… what's going on?"

"The same thing as always," Fenris replied with a shrug. "The end of the world."

She started to smile crookedly and scratched behind her ear. "Anything else new with y –?"

"I'm still mad at you."

"Alright."

* * *

_**One hour later** _

The group started to gradually disband during the next hour. Isabela resolved to win her money back by playing with strangers who didn't already know she was a flaming cheater, Merrill was dragged into it on the grounds that she should "learn to mingle" and Fenris left the table to hang out with Varric, both of them becoming drunker by the second as soon as they joined forces. At one point, Aveline snuck out into Varric's room when Donnic and Brenan showed up to have a drink. Hawke  _thought_ about going to Varric, but disturbing Fenris's fun time did not look pretty in her head with all the train of consequences that would follow. As soon as he saw a smile on Fenris while talking to the dwarf, she completely banished all thoughts to join.

Until Aveline could come back, she was stuck with Anders.

"I'm guessing you don't want another round of me stealing your money," Hawke muttered to him.

"You guess correctly," Anders said with a smile.

"Hm." She searched her mind. "Would you rather we talked?"

"That  _is_ a reasonable, fairly standard way of socializing with other people in a public area," Anders mumbled sardonically.

"That's not the standard way to socialize in a dark alley then?" Hawke mused all-grinningly.

"Well, that would be such a waste," Anders mused on. "There are so many more entertaining things you could do in a dark alley."

"Like putting out milk for stray lonely cats such as yourself," Hawke cut him with a big smirk on her face.

"Well that's not  _socializing_  per se, at least I don't see it that way," Anders retorted. He grinned. "Of course I won't turn down an offer for human socializing should it come my way."

"In a dark alley you mean?" Hawke asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Anywhere, really," Anders said with a serious face. Then he grinned again. "But especially in a dark alley, of course."

Hawke snorted. "Is this the part where I should go ' _Ga-row, meet you out in five, sailor_ '?"

"I think the appropriate term for me would be wizard in this case," Anders said nonchalantly.

"Yes, oh mighty rambunctious wizard, meet you out in five and you could make the earth run from under my feet with your big, magic staff," Hawke mumbled sarcastically.

Anders shrugged and smile. "Most of them have to compensate."

"But not you," Hawke said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well," Anders went on, smirking again. "There's only one way to find out."

"Are you drunk on green tea or something?" Hawke asked. Who knew, with Anders, anything short of accepting the Circle and the Chantry was possible.

"I'm just playing around, lighten up," Anders said with a smile. "Of course, if it bothers you, I'll stop."

Hawke chuckled. "Well that would mean that I would also have to stop playing around, and that would make me sad." Of course, having lost most of her keen perception, she didn't suspect at all that what he meant, and what she meant, were regarding completely different things and each of them understood what they wanted.

And the matter would not be resolved, because a weird-accented voice came tickling her ear in a bad way up to that point. "I'm sorry, I ran late."

She turned her head and beheld an effigy that really didn't belong to the scenery of this tavern. She didn't seem to mind or notice. "He-hey, Sebastian, comm-ere! Have a seat! Get a load of this whiskey."

"I'll pass, but thank you," Sebastian drawled and took a seat in front of her next to Anders. "Good evening."

"Same to you," Anders saluted nonchalantly. "What brings you here of all places?"

Sebastian smiled in perfect innocence. "Oh, Varric invited me."

Anders contained his urge to snort and asked, "Making friends in low places, I see?"

"No, actually he hangs around the Chantry a lot." Sebastian shrugged. "It's strange, but who am I to question. He seems like a good fellow."

"He can be nice," Hawke muttered with a smile. "He also can be resourceful in finding good hiding spots."

"Oh, is that why come around too, Hawke?" Sebastian asked. "There is a rumor going on that you found the Maker after you came back from your travels. I'm sure that doesn't have  _anything_  to do with yours visits." Oh, now whoever could it be, that started this rumor?

"That seems rather unlikely." Hawke smirked and drank away. "I have enough difficulty finding the keys to my house, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

Sebastian sighed despondently. "I see you haven't changed your views since our last," he accentuated the next word, "serious debate we had."

"I did not pertain to the subject of the Maker at all in our last serious debate," Hawke objected and drank again. "What we argued about was your  _religion._ You can see how that is different."

"Whether we discuss Adrastianism or the Maker does not make a difference," Sebastian protested.

"Now there's where you're wrong," said Hawke. "Religion is one thing, faith is another."

"Of which you have neither, I suppose," Sebastian said calmly.

She banged the bottle on the table. "I most certainly do!" She rolled her eyes. "I strongly believe that anyone can believe whatever they want, as long as it's their choice rather than getting convictions stuffed down their throat, and as long as they don't come to harm others."

"Well what sort of difference does your faith have from ours?" Sebastian protested. "Our faith has not harmed anyone, rather it has the duty of helping others."

"By sitting and praying, and doing nothing as in," Anders muttered grumpily.

Hawke smiled drunkenly. "Oh no, praying is great, without it the thumbscrews and the Iron Maiden probably never would have been invented."

"By people," Sebastian corrected. "It's what people do, and not all of it is pleasant."

"Yes, yes, the people," Hawke said and rolled her eyes, shooting Anders a look as if to say, 'Now you understand why I hate people?'. She continued in a grumpy tone, "The powerful people and the weaker people. The rich and the poor. The blessed and the not so blessed."

"What of them?" Sebastian asked in confusion.

She rolled her eyes again. "You know what 'good' initially meant? It designated the right of those individuals from the Knight class who had enough mind to live their lives by sheer force of will. But a 'priestly' caste, motivated by their resentment of their 'natural' superiors, men in power, men with noble blood, men who had magic and so on, generated a corrupt alternative that would appeal to 'the herd' of less capable people, turning values inside-out. In your 'morality' reinforced by your religion, forceful actions get labeled as 'evil' unless they are imposed by the one and only Chantry. That's it. And the herd goes with it and whatever they say, of course. And the cowardly tendency of the Chantry to think through everything in advance, like imprisoning mages for their own good to protect others, is transformed into the supposed virtue of prudence."

"It  _is_ the virtue of prudence, how can you say otherwise?" Sebastian protested. "Look what happened not a week ago here."

"Yeah, some puppets came to life and people killed all the dangers," Anders said grumpily. "How scary. One mage goes bonkers, all of them  _have_ to be evil."

But Hawke already became hot-headed philosophical and raised a finger to make them shut up and let her continue, " _Genuine_ autonomy, could only mean freedom from all external constraints on one's behavior. If the behavior in question of that one citizen becomes dangerous, he gets punished once there is evidence of his own doing. Simple." She took a sip and still continued, "In this (natural and admirable) state of existence, each individual would live a life without artificial limits of moral obligation. No other sanction on conduct would be necessary than the natural punishment involved in the victory of a superior person over a vanquished enemy. And we have Guards and soldiers for that plenty."

"Yes, we torture innocents, certainly," Sebastian said sarcastically.

Hawke ignored him. "But the wish of lesser people to secure themselves against interference from those who they are paranoid of being better, more powerful, gives rise to a false sense of moral responsibility. The natural fear of being overwhelmed by a foe becomes internalized as self-generated sense of guilt, and individual conscience places severe limits on the normal exercise of someone's rights to life  _and_ living. It's a self-betrayal of all races to submit its freedom to the fictitious demands of an imaginary god. Or at least the demands that  _people_ deem as coming from the words of a god." She pointed at him. "Afraid to live by strength of your own wills, you invent religion as a way of generating and then explaining perpetual sense of being downtrodden and defeated in life. Thus, everyone else must be taken down with you."

Sebastian shook his head. "But the good people preserve what is good, no matter what. There are evil people, even within the Chantry, that I will not object, but such beings will come to see penance as they always do." Now he pointed at her. "And that will never change as long as we have faith in the Maker that he will preserve us."

"Of course, of course," Hawke uttered joyfully, smiling with half-lidded eyes. "You  _have_ to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go mad," she said nonchalantly, taking a large sip from the bottle. Her bright, elusive smile did not so much as flicker. "Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of the Void. Otherwise existence would be a dark, mind-numbing  _agony_ and the only hope would be that there is no life after death." She closed her eyes and nodded. "I quite understand."

* * *

_**Meanwhile at Varric's table** _

Scrutinizing the first copies of his book, Varric frowned at showed the great printer dwarf Willem Tapster (it was pronounced Will-uhm like the sound old dying toads used to make as he said it), cousin of Rudy Tapster of Tapster's Tavern back in Orzammar, that he misspelled Har _f_  in Hightown.

"Mess'd up that bit. Wasn't payin' a'ention," Tapster muttered with masked inconvenience. He was drunk as a nug. "Er… leave it. Imma make the R bigger or sumfin'." He coughed hoarsely. "That's it then. Hoe many of'em copies tchu want, eh?"

"I don't know…" Varric started counting on his fingers, overestimating his ability what with the cogs meshed up in the jittery gearbox that was his drunken brain doing a poor job at clonking into place.

Fenris got his mind up to something approaching the correct speed, and decided to do the talking, at least most of the coherent talking, since he was still two whiskeys away from joining Varric in his gentle waterslide under the moon. "Make it a hundred. He has a lot of readers within the Guard."

"Make it fiffy…  _fifty,_ " Varric mumbled. "I don't wanna risk it just yet, even –f's a classic."

Fenris remembered his first publication. He smirked and said, "You had to admire a guy who called his own new book a classic before it was published and anyone else had a chance to read it."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Varric said proudly. "Plus, it  _is_ a classic."

"Mhm, g—d ri—nce. Mm. Imma make it a hun'red anyhowe," said Tapsters. "You got a lo'a rea'ers in the Mershents Guilde."

"I do?" Varric asked, almost appearing surprised. "I don't suppose the Thieves Guild took a liking with me too now."

"Mh-hm-hm," Tapsters coughed. "Can't knowe for sure. Can't trus'em, you knowe."

"Can't reach them more likely," Fenris muttered.

"Well Guard-Captain over there," Varric started but didn't seem to spot Aveline and his hand started trembling a bit. He went on undaunted, "does reach them sometimes –not through me by the way, but still, they deem it rather useless and go on with more important matters."

"More important matters than going after criminals?" Fenris asked with an accusatory eyebrow.

Varric chuckled. "Well even the Guard knows you can't go around arresting the Thieves Guild. They'd be at it all day."

They had tried that once, a very long time ago as he understood, but the details were 'fully classified' so Varric interpreted it to his liking in his first book. And he was sure he wasn't far from the truth either. I mean, how can a full rank feel after such a long and wild goose chase other than returning to their barracks as if they had returned from attempting to single-handedly conquer a distant province and failing horribly at it, of course? They'd bang their backs to the wall, produce a cigar confiscated from whatever dimple-faced gutter nut-hook they arrested that day and ask themselves why in the world they chose to be guards in the first place. They'd blow some circles, really thinking about it, all while feeling tremendously "bucked-up"; at least that's how Varric chose to put it (which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they actually felt).

"True, true," Tapsters agreed with his eyes closed. The man was a roaring slobbering husk of a coughing machine. "Can't catch'em all. Matterofact… matterofact… stan's to reaison." He took a large sip of ale to clean his overly cobwebbed throat, then his words finally sounded like they came from an eloquent rational being. "The economy would be doomed."

Fenris rolled his eyes through the back of his head. "Let's hope you get more readers with the beggars since you're bashing on the Guards so ruthlessly."

"I have a poor slob who reads everything I publish. I don't know his real name but people call him Black-Eye Schlobby," Varric said happily. "He hangs out by the Docks. Comes here every Tuesday. He isn't allowed in the Beggars Guild anymore though."

"Howp ya make'et, Varrec," Tapsters muttered huskily, pat him strongly on the back, then drank his ale. He flung a hand out. "Wassa name, by'awieh," he mumbled and pointed at the back with his thumb, "the rea'hea'."

"Guard  _Captain_ Aveline Vallen, Serah," Varric said, articulating the 'captain' more loudly so everyone else around the tables heard him clearly. "Crime fighter and doombringer to all foes."

"Nah, no' 'er," Tapsters mumbled. "The ' _eally_  'ed won."

"The what?" Varric pleaded with a raised eyebrow.

Tapster cleared his throat again with ale, and then again cleared his throat, making the sound a stomach would make if it digested pebbles. "The really red one."

"Oh." Varric scratched behind his ear. "A good friend of mine. Really  _good_ friend of mine." Again, he had to speak louder so any supposed cut-throat shady character would get the idea that there would be _trouble_  if they caused trouble.

"She's Hawke, she is," Tapters muttered. "She mussbe. Mhm, mhm… bloody, li'erally bloody well woman tha' wone."

"Don't trust any rumor you hear, Taps," Varric quickly said. "Not  _all_ of them which say she lures children away from their mothers and eats them is true." He winced and hit his forehead. "I mean… none of _those_ are true, is what I'm saying."

"Well she doesn't  _eat_ them per se, she just roasts them over the coals for a while and lets them go," Fenris mused evilly. Varric raised an eyebrow. Fenris shrugged all-smiling, clutching with both hands at the bottle between his thighs. "It's a Ferelden thing."

" _Don't_ trust the elves," Varric muttered sharply, murdering Fenris with his eyes. "If only their nose would grow as long and pointy as their ears each time they  _lie._ "

"Wot… wot?" another drunken dwarf intervened. "'s not true. 'mpossible."

His name was Alexander Hemlock, a very skilled, very handsome because beardless, dagger-wielder and 'licensed thief' from the Thieves Guild (this was separate from the Coterie, although the names were always confused and interchanged, so the two guilds were having endless altercations with each other for no good reason, and they didn't fret over stealing from one another whilst the superiors were busy barking at one another. Varric called it  _honorable reciprocity_ ). He helped the Merchants Guild with the unknown trade of unknown substances and other unknown objects now and then, among other things.

But after thorough character analysis from his friends, he involuntarily went by the alias of Alfie The Buttstabber. You could see how Varric was never enthusiastic about Merchants Guild meetings. But he wasn't really an  _assassin_ hired by the Merchants Guild, at least that's what Varric thought with the last speck of hope he had. An assassin, a real assassin that is,  _had_ to be fully dressed in black clothes, black hood, black boots, black daggers and all, he thought to himself. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door, right?

The dwarf continued, "But I 'ear she cracked ol' Aquila's skull open and punched his eyes out from their sockets."

Varric frowned. "Well that  _might_ be true… the fuck's an Aquila?"

Alfie the Buttstabber shook his head. "Who. Who is Aquila."

"Who the fuck's Aquila," Varric pressed, severely grumpy as he was.

"That ol' hunky renegade from Tevinter who used to lead the lyrium trade with them guilds backinnaday," Alfie the Buttstabber explained, as if this information was clearly reasonable and they should know all about it because it was in the papers too. He snorted and produced a cigar from his deep pockets. "T-w _hell,_  backinnaday as in until this summer." He shrugged and pointed at his face. "Y'know. With them scars."

Varric was still frowning, but something like a thought appeared to have bumped into his head by accident. " _Oh._ The merchants called him Cupcake. I don't know why, his head was shaped kind of like a banana." He took a sip of ale, ignoring that Fenris seemed extremely confused because he did not recall any such encounter in their company. "Yeah, he had the unfortunate of calling her  _dollface._  Well that and he was bad. So she resolved to give him a pretty makeover."

Alfie looked behind to her table. "She kinda looks like a doll though. Wouldn't guess from the face that she can crack your skull open with her bare hands. Well, the armor gives you a hint, but most people aren't receptive to hints until they catch them by the throat and cracks their skulls open, y'know."

"Oh, Aflie, don't tell me you're thinking of stabbing her butt," Varric mused.

Handsome Alfie smirked through his teeth. "Not the regular stabbing, no."

"Perish that thought," Varric exclaimed. "Before, you know…" he started dangling his fingers in the air to make it look spooky and went on in a hissy monstrous voice, "before  _you_ perish."

Alfie couldn't stop smiling. "I fight fire with fire."

"No, you fight fire with six different types of poison and pointy Antivan stilettos," Varric corrected all-determined to make him back off, for some reason.

He looked behind him again and said, "Well." He looked back at them and shrugged with a manly smirk. "See you on the other side."

"Alf – Alfie – oh dear…" Varric clamped his face with a hand and shook his head. "Bastard's gonna die."

"Is that why we never see her admirers?" Fenris asked mockingly. "Because they're all dead by the time we get here?"

"Well if you die by the crack of dawn, then yeah, mystery solved," Varric muttered through the palm that was still on his face.

"Then it is not so much a mystery as it is a fairy tale," Fenris uttered and rolled his eyes.

Tapsters fell asleep and leaned against the wall in the meantime, so Varric took the chance to go passive accusatory on his ass. "So… let me guess. The stubborn diamonds put the lid on the pot with giving _another_ shiny makeover to something."

"Perceptive," Fenris said in pretend-amazement, having his eyes fixed forwards. "Even when you're drunk."

"I'm  _sharp_ , Serah," Varric corrected, drinking his ale. "I'm sharp like a knife, kind of like these merchants here are when it comes to making just the right amount of wrong change."

Something like a hoarse chuckle resounded from Fenris's breath, then he said, "I do not wish to talk about it, I must disappoint you."

Varric almost banged his head against the back wall as he leaned on it and rolled his eyes. "You  _must,_ yes, it's kind of like you're setting a goal to make me pull my hair out with your 'I don't wanna talk about' bit; gosh, I'm taken _aback_  with this piece of news."

"Well if you were taken affront, then that would be piece of news right there," Fenris muttered, pretending to sound eager again.

"Your pretentious jokes suck when you're drunk," Varric said sharply. "Well, more than they already suck when you're sober."

They both sat with their backs against the wall, looking grim and tired. Fenris still held the bottle between his legs to keep him chilly, which didn't really work but he went numb after Unknown Bottle number two, so he just went with it. Stayed with it more likely. Varric rested his pint on one leg and produced a cigar from his jacket. Tapster started to snore and even a giant hibernating bear would admit to its inferiority in comparison.

They beheld the little scenery in front of them. Farther away, Hawke was gesturing vigorously around, perhaps in trying to explain to Sebastian that the eggplant she was shaping with her fingers in the air was what the Chantry folk had replaced his brain with. But then her rapid graphic gestures were interrupted when handsome Alfie leaned over with his elbow on the table next to her and commenced a conversation of sorts, if he were lucky to last more than fifteen seconds before she would start laughing and patting him on the head to go away.

Varric titled his head in Fenris's direction without looking at him and pretended to put words in Alfie's mouth from afar, "Hooh, d'you have a sunburn milady, or are you always this hot?"

Of course they couldn't hear the conversation, they could only interpret from their faces. And Hawke was arching an eyebrow at the moment, raising her elbow as her hand was resting on her leg.

Fenris silently agreed to join in Varric's game and produced her line, "Do you often stare death in the eye or is this a special occasion?"

Alfie started to laugh and kept smiling pointing behind with the back of his thumb, then said something, which Varric produced as, "Well I've been staring at you from over there for a good while and thought I'd see just how close I can fly towards the sun without getting burned. Seems I'm capable enough."

She also looked to her side towards their table, and then looked back at Alfie, which Fenris translated as, "I've also noticed you from the other side of the bar. You look way better over there."

Alfie was smirking confidently and put one foot over the other. Varric said, "They said you were feisty but boy, were they understating it. How about you tell me a little about yourself?"

Hawke started to look the other way, sighed and then said something to him. Fenris translated, "Well my greatest strength is my self-deprecating sense of humor, but it's probably not worth getting to know me."

Varric went on, since Aflie started gesturing towards her as if he was demanding something, "What do you do for a living, you know, besides what the rumors say?"

Hawke was smiling elusively, so Fenris fired back, "Well, apart from eating dwarves like you for breakfast, I'm a female impersonator."

Alfie was laughing and gesturing towards the entrance, so Varric started to chuckle too and said, "Well, you look female enough, which is more than I can say for the females in my race. What do you say we go back to my place?"

Hawke was still smiling ever so nicely and clutched at her belt. Fenris translated, "Sure. Let me get my gags and handcuffs and we're good to go."

Alfie for some reason took out a dagger and thrust it swiftly in the table and fixed his eyes on her, which Varric interpreted as, "I like your eyes."

Hawke didn't seem to flicker one bit. She nonchalantly rested her chin under her hand with her elbow on the table and kept smiling. "Well, my eyes don't like you," Fenris decoded.

Alfie didn't shudder either, but he got his dagger out of the table and brushed his fingers against the edge of the blade as he spoke shortly and stared her confidently in the eye, which Varric produced as, "I would die for you, Hawke."

Fenris smirked and gave her the line to attune to her winking at him. "Prove it."

And the next thing that happened was that handsome, courageous Alfie decided to delay acting upon his death wish and prepared to walk away. Fenris and Varric both started to laugh and bumped their bottles together.

"'Tis a good night  _not_ to die then, the dwarf thus decided," Varric mused and raised the bottle of ginger ale, having given up on pints, which drooled faster in his drunken grip.

"A wise choice," Fenris agreed in a knightly tone.

But then something went wrong and completely in discord with what they so cleverly decoded, because Hawke came up from the table and Alfie chivalrously gestured an 'After you'. Either it was that or he had an arm spasm. Hawke beckoned at Anders and Sebastian what seemed to be a 'I'll be back' and turned her happy gaze at the dwarf.

"Illcrackisskullopen." Varric lifted his gaze. It  _sounded_ like Fenris's voice, and it had seemed to come from the general area of his face, it was just that it demonstrated an incoherence you did not often get from him, ever.

She went out of the tavern with him. Varric was searching his mind for some logic in this turn of events, but his instinct went to carefully scrutinize his fellow's next action that could possibly be as violent and incoherent as the line he had previously muttered with a subtle little ferocity even he wasn't used to. As he looked at him, Fenris took out the bottle from between his knees and appeared to resolve to finish it in one take.

 


	48. Prepare To Die

"Broo—el— _Fenris_ … ?"

His face seemed perfectly serene, doubled by a nonviolent air of content as he finished the bottle in one take which of course, would have caused the ordinary man to choke and scream and spit everything out on account of having his throat turn into a coal factory that also caught on fire and at the same time volcano nearby erupted and the place had been overrun with hot, hot lava. Fenris, however, did not so much as flicker. He put the bottle on the table, left his hand clutching at it for a bit while dauntlessly looking forward. Varric watched him sit like this, with his index finger softly banging on the bottle and his green empty eyes fixed into all the same empty space.

They used to make a most astounding dynamic duo back in the day, after Hawke ditched the city to look for Carver. He found that dealing with the kind of people here in Kirkwall, his own resourcefulness and charisma combined with Fenris's unnerving cold demeanor that turned into incessant formidable anger on occasion promised a successful career. Varric knew how to steal time and persuade with words, while Fenris knew how to cut things short, specifically to  _cut_ , and especially things shorter than him for negotiating with dwarves, and dwarves in particular he found horrifically annoying. And Varric couldn't help but like him a little whenever he'd find out they had something in common.

And even if he was a skilled archer and a hell of a good shot both with Bianca and with his fists, Varric was not very good at what you could call sustained violence. He thought of himself as a calm person. A reasonable, peaceful, let-the-good-shot-as-a-last-resort kind of person. Not that Fenris was particularly rash with violence, but he was much better at the  _sustained_ part. In a way, Varric both admired and envied the fact that Fenris had an apparently bottomless supply of anger when they  _really_ needed it for something. When they became friends, and part of reason for it, was that Varric saw that Fenris was not in fact, as he appeared to most of the world, just another freak. Some negative merits can reach a playing field of perfection that changes their very nature, and Fenris had turned anger into an art.

He knew that anger solely pertained to his former oppressors, and his apathy to the world was born because of this, and that it would be a long way for him to turn into a fully functioning normal person, but until then his fierceness and grouchiness could have still been put to good use. Especially since to the outside eye—and even to Varric because sometimes it was just so easy to forget— Fenris appeared to be angry as well as cold simply at anything and everything. It looked like simple, pure platonic anger and coldness from somewhere in the primitive depths of the soul, a clear fountain of never-ending red hot grudge and freezing shardy icicles. Varric had occasionally found himself wanting to ask Fenris what exactly happened to him to make him like this, but to Fenris the past was another realm with very, very well-guarded borders, and a millionth time thicker than the Veil. He knew better than to ask.

And when the day was over they'd come here and have a few. Varric never saw him  _really_ drunk, but he was still a weird slightly-drunk all the same.

When Hawke had a few, apart from the expected comedy bit, she would talk about exotic animals, question the many peculiarities of how things and mechanisms worked in life and hold tremendously long and surprisingly eloquent speeches about the many ways of how the world was flawed, or about the many ways in which some types of swords were horribly impractical, dumb-looking and whoever invented such execrating examples of sheer absurdity in swordsmanship should stab themselves in the eye with it. And all those argumentative speeches could always and without exception be summed up into: people, of all races,  _suck_ and the system, of all races,  _sucks_  and anything short of exotic beings that walk on four legs or have wings simply _sucks._ But most of all Orlesian basket hilts  _suck so bad_ even ancient vampires would kneel and denounce their inferiority to the cause of  _sucking._

The  _worst_ case of drunken Hawke was when she turned  _Ferelden,_ and that intimidating fiend from the Void itself always had this incredible habit of showing up whenever Varric was  _alone_ , but nevertheless _it_  had been democratic enough to come out only once or twice a year to scare him shitless and make him become closer with the Maker.

When Fenris had a few, at least during the six months of the Great Dwarf – Elf Depression of 9:31/32 Dragon, he would become either extremely cheerful or extremely brooding, depending on the drink. If the drink made his mood sink into droopiness more than his normal self-deprecating tendencies animated, or rather  _un_ animated him when sober, he would rest his head in his palm appearing very bored and unimpressed with the world for a while, and then out of the blue he would genuinely ask Varric questions like, "Why do the dwarves here act so puffed-up and bigheaded as if they had an ancestor who invented the formula for turning lead into gold?" or "Why do all women here walk as if they had a broom stuck up their fannies?" or "Why is it you think that human genetics work with such flabbergasting accuracy in making their faces look so… so … what's the word… what  _is_ the word… no not asymmetrical, Varric. There's another word for it but I cannot remember…  _bucked_ up?" And that's how the more courteous expression of being fucked up was born in the first volume of  _Hard in Hightown_.

When he was cheerful, he wouldn't criticize foreign civilization and society so much as he would start giving names to everything starting with the table, simply dubbed  _Table of Fenris,_ to every figure that walked in or talked to them. And as his trade tongue vocabulary grew larger, the names became evermore creative. Coriff was dubbed  _Genderless Gatekeeper._ When he found out that it was in fact his son  _Corff_ (to which Varric could hear the mighty throb of Fenris's eyes rolling to the back of his head)who tended the bar and carefully scrutinized him, and after he understood the word was men in his position usually listened to the lament of women and with last call the barkeep would leave with them for the night to further comfort them in their sorrows, he called him  _Sexless Son of Genderless Gatekeeper._ The incredibly pretentious dwarf Uriel who frequented the place he called "Uppy"and the other former noble dwarf Warren Skidrel who always came in wearing six layers of plate armor and could never shut up about how great the warrior caste was back in Orzammar as opposed to the Kirkwall Guard, he called"Whiny Shincleaver" _._ Three Guards who always came in together were dubbed as "Paunchy", "Clay-brained" and "Scullian".

Varric's most beloved and loyal barmaid Norah had the infortune of Fenris never remembering her name, and in the beginning she would be called upon as "human" or "female" but as time went by and fortunately away from her ears, she was granted with the title of  _Mouse Eyes_ and  _Shortskirt von Bouncy Bounce,_ and when Varric told him her name the fifteenth time that month he said, "Norah? Nor… ah..." He took a sip of his ale and started chuckling with himself and Varric just had to ask and be given the explanation that, "Nor  _up,_ nor  _down_  is she pleasant to the eyes." Then Varric just  _had_  to inquire upon further details to explain his firm hypothesis and Fenris calmly enlightened that he was not familiar with concepts of beauty, but in his eyes however, she wasn't particularly unattractive, only that a few centuries ago Norah's little eyes would have made the great Tevinter painter Leonitus bite his brush in half, five hundred years ago the sculptor Pacuvius would have taken one look at her chin and dropped the chisel on his foot and a millennium ago the Theodosian poets would have agreed that her nose alone was capable of launching at least forty ships. Varric was most amused with these descriptions. As he remarked before, Fenris in many ways was a very unexpected man.

But Varric resolved not to burden his mind with forming concepts of beauty, because he never really was interested in any race but his own, and with the dwarves the concept of female beauty never went more complex than "does not have a beard". Fenris however, though never mentioning anything about any kind of capability to fancy someone and just as well, mentioning not being familiar with concepts of beauty, seemed to be very explicit about it  _except_ for his own never mentionedconcept at times of alcohol consumption. So with that peculiar humor of Fenris and the careful criticism of everything and everyone, Varric concluded that somewhere under that metaphorically self-inflicted scar tissue and at the heart of that shuddering anger was the soul of a true connoisseur with an infallible instinct for beauty. It was a strange thing to bind in the body of an elf that ripped hearts out people's chests for a living.

Varric  _tried_ to decipher what hidden meanings lurked in his mutterings, but to the best of his ability he could only determine that what Fenris was trying to say was "No female looks good enough" and "No woman can impress me" (which belonged to the larger phrase and historical conviction of "No being can impress me"), but when Hawke came back and Fenris ceased with his fastidious criticisms and instead occupied himself with debating every little thing in the world with Hawke, Varric finally found the missing piece of the puzzle and understood that Fenris didn't have some astounding inborn instinct for art or beauty—but  _an_  instinct nonetheless— because the actual phrase was "No female is  _Hawke_ enough".

Because she was, indeed, through no real faults of her own perfect for him. She was the kind of woman that in her darkest hour, beaten, scarred, blood drooping all around her perhaps even missing a limb or two would still smile and say, "I can walk unaided" and inquire about how the others were doing. She was also the kind of woman who could make even cauliflower seem funny on the rainiest of days. And though few people liked her without prejudice or some inconvenience with her views or behavior, she wasn't one to judge and denigrate to make things even. The most you could get was a snarky comment, but most people just received unnervingly cold eyes and a "Cheers". She was also a fierce and strategically-driven mind, at least when she was not drunk, the kind of mind that could win a war before it ever took place, again, if she was not drunk. There was also this duality of seeing her as an impossibly lovely and humorous young girl, while sometimes spotting in her eyes a woman a great deal wiser and an ocean sadder. One who understood the nature of pain, the nature of hard work, of the power of will, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character and a great deal of knowledge. And those things made beauty beside the prettiness of some face. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years in Fenris's eyes, and she didn't seem to care.

And much like him, Hawke was fairly disappointed and unimpressed with a city where in Hightown everyone acted like society lords and in Lowtown everyone acted as if they were the ultimate victims of fate, yet still took no break in remaining poor because their main priority was finding a cheap powder or dust or bath salt they could snort. But noblemen she hated more than anyone, and before she only had to take jobs from them, but now she was living among them with no more hope to give them a black eye and have her name come up every few papers in a huge stack of official reports either on Dumar's or Meredith's desk. Nevertheless, the trio was ready and willing, and there were dire times when a self-important jackass really begged for it.

As drunken avant-garde Hawke once said, there would be a time when a new way of things would come, one without the shackles of tradition holding them back and one where powerful people will not be so powerful just by poking their feathers in the inkwell or speaking in a pretentious accent—Happening people. Fenris for example, she said, happened all the time.

"Varric," happening Fenris said, his hand carefully leaving the bottle and moving to slowly undo the buttons from the collar of his shirt.

Varric silently gulped and frantically kept his eyes on him. He almost whispered, "You… alright?"

But Fenris appeared not to have heard him, silently and carefully undoing those first buttons and slowly lifting up the sleeves of his shirt.

"Elf?" Varric pressed, leaning forward to catch his eyes.

Fenris inhaled shortly while still staring through him, and then his face grew titanically adorable with murder.

He rose, half-stumbling over the table, grabbed his sword and made haste for the door. It was surprising to Varric how incredibly thoughtful he was that he also grabbed the frock coat and left it on the bench at their other companions' table for safekeeping. But the most important part was that whatever he was  _happening_ to do now was in serious need of a half-reasonable intervention on his part, so in the flash of a second he got up, grabbed Bianca and went straight out the door after him.

* * *

**Nighttime, Outside Of The Hanged Man, Lowtown District**

Fenris came out the door and scrutinized the area to the best of his impaired vision. His head was blowing up and nothing like a thought happened to swirl around the havoc in his mind. He started to walk, _tried to_ , hitting his sword on the ground whenever he would lose balance. He looked forward, he looked backwards, and clutched to the sword as the imagery sort of quivered in front of his eyes. If she was nowhere in sight, then it _must_  be true, what he saw back there in the tavern.

Flailing and thrashing, Fenris cursed and tossed and paced and cursed some more. There had been three great cases of jealousy since Gaspard d'Jean Bon of Val Royeux was first afflicted with the emotion, as history tells it, when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor, Jean-Némard Laflamme-Brûlé's cactus outshone his own. Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactuses or gingkoes, or later, when there was grass, grass, which is why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy. Fenris's case rated a close fourth on the all-time list. This was going to be a very long and very green night.

Luckily, Varric's voice came from behind, "Elf, calm down and let's go back inside  _nice_  and  _slowly_."

Fenris didn't answer, instead staring into empty space again, or searching it in vain.

"Earth to Fenris!" Varric pleaded in annoyance and waved his hand. "I'm down here, not that it's oh so amusing right now."

He didn't flinch or curl a lip. Varric kicked him in the leg. Again, no flinch. But then Fenris heard what sounded like an  _Ahah_ echoing from afar, and since the streets were empty, and because he could not care less about misconduct, he made haste and went straight forward in the direction the sound came from.

"Where the hell are you going!" Varric shouted. He went after him immediately, becoming yet again close to the Maker, because he was sure than this was Fenris's alternative "hot-headed Ferelden mode" Varric would later call "silently murderous Tevinter mode".

Fenris was surprisingly fast even in his half-stumbling pace, and Varric tried to keep up as much as he could and find some reason in his eyes on the way. He presumed what Fenris's inner voice was screaming was highly flattering and generous Tevinter curses.

In reality, the only thing going on in Fenris's head as they started going up the stairs to the Lowtown Market was —" _I'll kill you, I'll killyoukillyoukillyoukillyoukillkillkill you'll kill you kill you'll kill you_  —"

The terrible fury choked him, the rage and dreadful fear set his lungs on fire, and the stairs felt like they unrolled and made him go down. There was no end to them. They climbed forever, while he was falling backwards into hell. But hell buoyed him up, gave wings to his rage, lifted him, sent him back…

And then, his breath now nothing more than one long profane scream, he reached the top step—

There was Hawke farther away, and  _there,_ the goatish swag-bellied abortive pumpion Alfie.

"Dwarf!" Fenris called flatly. He made haste to them, drew out his sword, raised it a little just to point towards his head and said, "Prepare to die."

Hawke looked at him in disbelief, her eyebrows arching up Heaven. Varric was shaking his head rapidly and raised his palms out from afar.

"On what grounds?" Alfie the dwarf demanded, taking a step towards him undaunted.

Fenris tightened his eyes on him, took a step forward himself and growled, "On the grounds of shut up and fight me."

"Well how can I refuse someone who begs for it," Alfie said with contempt, approaching him further. "Any last words, elf?"

Fenris looked down on him without concern and said, "Bite me."

"Well then, let the fight begin," Alfie said confidently.

"With pleasure," Fenris retorted coldly.

"No way!" Hawke shouted, taking a step between them. "Hells to the no to the fuck you  _and_ you BOTH. NO. "

"Stand aside, Hawke," Fenris demanded, his eyes flaring with murder past her arm and down to the dwarf.

"Yes, Hawke, you can't interrupt a gentleman's duel," Alfie said from down below.

"OH, I CANNOT?" she shouted angrily and turned to Alfie. She flung her arms out and shouted again, "But of course a gentleman  _can_  interrupt a duel between a lady and another gentleman because that's how the code of make-believe chivalry goes, is that it? You sodding misogynistic sheep-biting clap dish!"

Someone needed to bring a dictionary, and fast.

And then something that passed for thought came about in Fenris's head after hearing this and looking down to see that he hadn't noticed Hawke had been all this time with her sword drawn and Alfie was the same. As Isabela had previously pointed she really needed the D… which to his miscalculations turned out to still stand for "Duel." She was about to have a duel… Because Varric vetoed duels to be forbidden between companions that day.

Before Fenris could say anything however, Hawke turned around with impossible fury in her eyes and pointed at him. "And you! You ruttish knotty-pated pignut."

He lifted his eyebrows with incomprehension as to what she meant, but her finger was enough to make him understand she was referring to him.

"Yes?" he said.

"What in the Void is going on in that little brain of yours coming after me like that and threatening men with death on the street as if this is just another Tuesday?"

"Well, in my defense y—" Fenris started, but couldn't form any other words to attend to his behavior. He cleared his throat nervously and looked in different directions as he stated, "It  _is_  a Tuesday."

Hawke rolled her eyes, angry and about to strike him. "Actually it's already Wednesday, but yeah let's argue about the calendar, that is often the best argument in cases like this!"

"Are we going to fight here or what?" Alfie shouted impatiently. "Don't care who it is, really."

"Shut up," Hawke growled. She turned around angrily and waved a dismissive hand, "And begone."

"Oh come on!" Alfie cried. "He threatened me, what am I supposed to do? Hide behind your skirt?"

And then Hawke  _broke_ into the most genuinely maniacal smile and muttered between her teeth, "You have three seconds to disappear before I crack your skull open and give Corff those little dwarven eyeballs to put in tomorrow's Stew Surprise."

And then he was gone.

She turned around and caught Fenris's eyes in her vortex of hatred. "Great. Now I lost my one chance to have a duel." She started to walk away and muttered angrily, "Thanks a heaps, Ser Knight."

"In his defense, he—" Varric started, scratching his head. "Well, he was genuinely concerned over you and you didn't say anything and you know… we thought we'd…"

"So this is your doing too?" Hawke demanded furiously. Varric winced and appeared not to gather any sort of charismatic words to save his ass when faced with this kind of unnerving soul-shuddering figure that Hawke was presenting and the close potential of her literally owning up to it.

Fenris stepped forward and came between them at a healthy fraction of the speed of terror. "It was solely my doing. He only followed me."

"And what were you seeking exactly, by doing this?" Hawke shouted.

Fenris looked down and lifted one sleeve again up his arm. "I… You were… you—"

"I what? You what?" Hawke demanded furiously.

"You were Overseer of Varric's…  _something-something_  Day of…" He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Something."

"Smooth," Varric whispered.

"Well then," Hawke muttered, fixing her eyes on him only an inch away from his. "You lost me a duel. Now you owe me one."

Varric immediately jumped. "NO HAWKE, NO D—alright, I'll shut up now."

Varric used to sell his stuff all around the city, hanged around a bit  _too much_ in Hightown even for a merchant, and in Lowtown he was known as the bravest person alive, doing his business even outside the Carta's foundry and the "Beggar's Guild" one corner under the bridge. He knew how to get by and stay alive. But turn around the corner and hop into the sewer to get into Darktown and he was the most sanguine cowardly fiend in the world and even the rats and the moths were higher in the ranks of courage than him. He was a practical man, and a very cautious man. He was also a good judge of character, especially when it involved judging when to step innocently around the corner and then run like hell, and he had just decied that he was really unlucky to be standing here and also that it was too late, no matter what he said or what Fenris incoherently tried to say.

"Are you insane?" Fenris asked in annoyance. And so it begun. Varric prayed, with his own words, simply because he couldn't recall any sort of divine text that had anything to do with salvation. Everything else that had to do with  _damnation_ seemed to be pretty clear and ripe in his head. Screw the Chant of Light and its fantasy Void. This was something else entirely and much, much worse, his heart beating at a seriously unhealthy rhythm said to him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Prepare-To-Die, how is this more insane than your bit?" Hawke shouted angrily.

"I'll kill a dwarf, sure," Fenris said and flung his arm out into the direction of Alfie's ghost, "But you see how it is fairly inconvenient for me to kill  _you_."

"Why, I cannot!" Hawke said tauntingly.

"Let us leave." And with that he rolled his eyes. "And I apologize for my impertinent concern."

"How about no," Hawke said cuttingly.

"How about yes, Princess," Fenris fired back, tightening his eyes on her.

"Stop calling me that!" Hawke demanded ruthlessly.

Fenris smirked. "Alright. We return in peace and I will."

"Not a chance!" Hawke shouted.

Fenris pressed his lips and searched his mind. "Please?"

"Please?" Hawke snorted. "Now he says please."

Fenris shrugged. "There is a start for everything."

The four lesser apocalyptical horsemen of Panic, Bewilderment, Anger, and Shouting took control of the area by then.

And with that Hawke clenched her teeth and pointed at him. "You… YOU—you dissembling shard-borne FLAP-DRAGON!"

He was wrong. He was so very wrong. He had considered her loud before, her presence alone and all, but  _this,_ this was what Hawke was when she was  _loud._ And for his elven ears, it was doubled, the pain. For his elven heart, seeing her so mad at him, it was times fifty.

"Oh shit…" Varric said. The Red Fury of Ferelden came out. He couldn't think, so he didn't dare utter any other words. Fenris was much brighter than him, he was sure. After all, the brain worked fast when it thought it was about to be cut in half, and currently his was in very grave danger to be so.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Fenris said calmly. What was he doing, he thought to himself. He couldn't possibly be more stupid. Varric seconded.

"I scorn you, Fenris." She raised her hands up to the sky, for the gods to be her witnesses and kept shouting, "Gleeking folly-fallen malcontent!"

Fenris chuckled, defensively. "Is this the legendary hot-headed Ferelden thing you've told me about, Varric?"

She shook her head and harrowed Angry Hell upon him again. "What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen Void-hated elf!"

He didn't understand much of that, but he seemed to feel how she felt when he muttered all his Tevinter curses with no willingness to translate.

"We can save time and go and you can curse me all the way back, Hawke," Fenris said while rolling his eyes. This was reasonable. Although to be fair, he was not very good with reason, not in his state. Unlike him, Varric usually didn't verbalize any lousy vibration that passed for thought. They both used their heads all the time of course, but at times such as these, Fenris was using his from a distance of about a mile. Of course, when sober, Varric was usually the one to do the talking in tense situations, and Fenris would be the one to lose patience and demonstrate an unerring ability for violence that wouldn't automatically turn into murder. On the whole, they both agreed Varric would handle the polysyllabic cogitation. None of which seemed to be a reasonable alternative at the moment.

"Oh no." Hawke turned to a calmer demeanor and elusively grinned. "After all you said you faked it with me the last time,  _Prince._ Let's see how much you can pretend now while I'm in pants."

"Oh, I will be faced with increased difficulty, I bet," Fenris said sarcastically.

Hawke narrowed her eyes. "Well, sarge, you know that penalty for absenting yourself in times of war is  _death._ "

"But—"

"No buts! I do not wish to hear any more of your buts!" Hawke demanded and she started poking him on the chest as she continued, "I am not being unreasonable here. Upon my oath I am not an unreasonable woman," she gave him three stronger pokes, "but if you ain't fighting me within thirty seconds Fenris I will rip that sodding smartass tongue out!"

"Fine," he said cuttingly.

She walked away and assumed her position, Fenris assumed his, although this in turn was  _clear,_ that he was in no state to fight, as he couldn't keep both his eyes open at the same time. Perhaps it was presumed that whence he'd see she was incredibly serious the adrenaline would kick in and he would wake up from his haze. After all, a raging maniacal redhead who could easily rival your swordsmanship and happened to be mad at you was not a sight to simply overlook. And perhaps with that, somewhere down the line, she would probably wake up both from her drunkenness and her daunting thirst for bloodshed. And those were all just happy thoughts deeply locked into another realm.

And so it was, sort of, for Hawke took a bow, Fenris took a bow, and then she immediately bashed into him and he parried with his sword quite fast for an elf who had three unknown bottles of Ferelden booze that could safely be deemed as incurable poison. She knew this bit too well, parrying with the guard against the edge of the enemy's blade you were actually dominating the sword bumping and you could swiftly redirect it at their neck. While pretending to go left, making him cease with the pushing, Hawke pressed against that edge sideways and rolled the sword out of his hand. She caught it swiftly by the hilt as it flew in the air and backed away from him.

"Oh come on, Fenris, you're not even trying," Hawke complained. She threw the sword back at him. "You're making me cry just by looking at you!" She gestured a bring-it-on. "Give me something real to work with!"

"I'd rather just play around and pretend that I lose so we can get it over with," Fenris muttered grumpily.

"Pfew, what a woman!" Hawke shouted joyfully.

"I am not a woman," Fenris said flatly.

"You whine and sound and  _fight_ like one," Hawke taunted him. "But this is rather an offence to women even so."

"Alluvin vala kal," Fenris growled.

"Alluvin vala can't get one lousy swing right," Hawke went on.

"Oh piss off," Fenris retorted.

She smiled tauntingly. "Well how can you call yourself a warrior if you don't know how to use a sword?"

"Well, they see the sword and don't attack me," Fenris said sarcastically.

"Yes, but if they did, you wouldn't be any good with it, at least not with people like me it seems," Hawke cut him.

"I'd rather settle for just ripping their heads off," Fenris replied in flat-tone.

"Bring it on, Lyrium Boy," Hawke shouted.

Fenris tightened his eyes and put both hands on the hilt of his sword again. "Fine, Hawke, if you really want a fight, I'll give you one."

"Pfew, finally!" she shouted. "If nothing else worked, I thought I'd have to get on my knees and beg! Kind of like one does with a frigid shrew."

He growled incoherently through his teeth and went for her. This time he parried without losing his guard, caught her hands and pushed his hip into her and tried to disarm her. They almost both fell until she kicked her elbow in his neck, dropping her sword and getting behind him. She immediately grabbed his sword and held it with one hand on the hilt and on the other on the edge against his throat.

"Vishante kaffas," Fenris growled as he tried to get out of her grip, unsuccessfully, for she wasn't playing around and kept the sword right at his neck.

"Bite me," Hawke replied callously.

Varric was battling a heart attack, more so when Fenris took advantage of the fact that Hawke couldn't stand to have her shirt stuffed in her pants for more than two seconds, so he stuffed his hand under it and pinched her skin hard. That made her shout in pain and loosen on her grip of course, so Fenris grabbed her wrist, pulled the sword out and shoved her away.

She took her own sword up from the ground and they continued fighting this time with no chance of either to overpower the other. They pushed swords so strongly while barricading themselves from each other's offence that neither could really try to take a swing or sidestep with a quick spin-and-slash. It became tiring and infuriating, but everything else in the world just didn't seem to matter at that point.

"Venhedis fasta kalumnavoris!"

"Scurvy tickle-brained puttock!"

Varric didn't have any more free spots on his face to hit himself on. He sat down on the grand in the dark alley next to the battle ground with his back against the wall and prepared Bianca for whatever reason he couldn't think about. He tried to calm down, so he imagined a flock of goblins sitting nearby with questioning eyes. He thought to himself, "Well boys, you're probably wondering where we stand in this tale. We are in the deep cack. It couldn't be worse if it was raining arseholes upon us. Any questions?"

After all, this was bound to happen sooner or later, right? You take a bunch of people who don't seem very different from you, calm, cheery or grumpy but all the more crazed with impossible dormant fury, and when you put them all together with booze and a reason to pull each other's eyes out of their sockets, you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem. Except that now the nations were at war, civil war but war nonetheless, and this was in great many ways the most unnerving ludicrous example of the Tevinter—Ferelden battles. If the souls of the dead saw this both sides would have agreed that a fast death by getting a sword in your eye was much better than battling these two nutjobs.

But then again, thinking about the Red Fury of Ferelden and … I don't know, Whitefang the Fuming Doombringer of Tevinter running away from their homes and meeting halfway in Kirkwall just to tear each other apart limb from limb while the world was close to the brink of ruin… Varric imaginatively asked the imaginary goblins, "Guys, do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?"

But the question would remain unanswered by the goblins, for they vanished in the air when Hawke and Fenris came in their imaginary spot. It went, Hawke bumping to the wall, parrying with her sword, and Fenris trying to find a great chance to disarm her, and one point she raised her leg and pushed against him without much success but stubbornly kept it there under her sword so he wouldn't be the in the favorable circumstance of cutting her leg off, all while her having the greatest of chances to kick him in the fracas. Who knew, at this point, even Varric could be fooled by this sight that suggested they were genuinely trying to kill each other.

"Stop it!" Varric shouted. "You've made your point, you're both the best and if anyone dies soon it's just gonna be from utter exhaustion. Maker be my witness, you two would do a hell of a job under the sheets!"

They didn't listen. They probably couldn't even hear.

"STOP IT!" Varric shouted with the most honest air of exasperation out of his lungs. But then he realized this was no battle to get into without outside muscle. He decided this, and quickly vanished in the night to go straight to Aveline and whoever else volunteered to put an end to it.

In the meantime, Fenris's scowl was piercing the wall and could tear down the whole building and only Hawke seemed to be perfectly impenetrable. He took the chance to shove her sword away when she saw Varric leave. That made her bite his arm she finally kicked that leg further in his knackers, without intention. Getting a hold of his sword and forming a barrier with it diagonally as he came back to murder her, she put her leg against his thigh again and said, "Not a step further, elf."

"I do not care for your barriers anymore," Fenris growled incessantly.

"Yes, be like me, without a care for boundaries," Hawke said all-grinning.

"Well what sort of boundaries are there in duels after all," Fenris said.

"I don't know, genitals are off limits?" Hawke said. "As it will be with us should we both survive this fight."

"Was it ever otherwise?" Fenris said with a smirk. "I am most deeply shocked with the news."

"Well you're soon about to go forever  _blue,_  and not from those markings," Hawke retorted.

"That's alright," Fenris said, ignoring the sword at his throat entirely. "Seeing you so impossibly red and not from the hair is really warming my soul at the moment."

"Tyeah, your  _soul,_ " Hawke said with a laugh.

He took the chance to cock her hands and redirected the sword at her throat. "I believe it is difficult for you to conceive of such, since you are in serious lack of one," Fenris said angrily.

"Yes, yes, I'm depraved and shallow and utterly soulless," Hawke said sarcastically, ignoring his bit. "I restored your mansion to mock you, that's it, hand on my heart. Oh jee, why would you look at that. I don't have one. Why don't you shove your fist in there just to be sure?"

"Don't tempt me," Fenris growled.

"Well who's the soulless bastard now what with being so easy to make you murder me it seems," Hawke retaliated.

"It wouldn't be murder," Fenris said. "Not where I'm aiming." He lowered his sword and slashed a part of her – later would find – favorite shirt open. He fixed his eyes on her and shrugged. "Why would you look at that, it seems I am not faking it this time."

Hawke seemed not to form any retort, but become genuinely angrier with what he did. She caught the sword by end, pulled it and used the guard to catch Fenris by the back of his neck on the way. Then she punched him hard.

As he backed away and clamped his face, she shouted, "How did I ever lay my eyes on you, I cannot conceive! What an impudent embossed loggerheaded miscreant!"

She didn't need to see past the hand on his face to know he was now rolling his eyes as he muttered, "Etcetera, etcetera."

"Kind of like your life story," Hawke said mockingly. "It goes on and on, and it was never lived."

"Enough," Fenris growled, revealing an unerring ferocious scowl. He pulled the sword out of her hand, threw it away and foreseeing she would hit him again, he caught her by the wrist, grabbed the other one and crucified her against the wall.

She didn't seem to care.

"You scullion, you eel-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, you bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish!" she shouted, her eyes as angry and deadly as his. Almost literal fumes we coming out of her ears. And the voice was like the look in her eyes. Really  _present._  "Oh for breath to utter what is like you, Fenris! You tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck!"

"What an immense vocabulary lesson," Fenris muttered. "You've certainly kept all of this bottled up inside, haven't you?"

"Yes, mind if I get it all off my chest?" Hawke shouted. "It's a great exercise and I've learned it from the best after all. You should do the same."

"No," Fenris said. He didn't want to call her names, but he kept her like that without doing anything violent. What did he want then? He could be impossible sometimes.

"Oh come on," Hawke cried. "Call me a bitch, call me a vicious malignant whoredaughter for restoring your mansion, or better yet for everything I've been doing to you. Everything. Call me a witch, a harpy, a VIPER! It's all in there I know it still is."

"You're none of those things," Fenris said angrily. "What you are however is tremendously infuriating."

"What a shame!" Hawke said mockingly. She tried to get out of his grip and leaned forward. "I thought you were 'still mad at me' _._  What happened with that?"

Fenris inhaled furiously and shoved her back against the wall. "You happened,  _again._ " It was strange to see him this violent yet nonviolent. The best way to describe him would be a terrifically strong golem wearing mittens.

Hawke shrugged and her tone went from angry to sarcastic again, "Well I'm glad I'm happening, unlike you."

"I curse myself for ever kissing your lips," Fenris shouted. "May the gods be my witnesses, I take them all back."

"No backsies, Fenris," Hawke mused and broke into a wide grin. "You'll just have to live with it, and whatever disease I hope I'd given you."

"This already feels like a disease and a curse," Fenris muttered, coming closer to her face. "You are a curse."

"Well I can't wait for it to wither your bones," Hawke fired back, looking him straight in the eye, since the other eye and half of his face was growing purple. She jerked, pretended to try to get her wrists out from his grip again and with this distraction, kicked him in the  _knee_ this time, as hard as she could. Now this scenario would have been a lot funnier if he didn't wear those shoes and she could finally teach him a lesson concerning the impracticality of walking barefoot.

She got out of his hands of course, caught him by the shoulders and switched places with him. Up against the wall now and chained in her hands, Fenris started to curse. She was no golem with mittens, but rather like a battalion of angry butterflies, and while pretty and fragile, together they formed a massive body of a lovely and hopping mad butterfly with maniacal slaughter in its eyes and clapper-clawing spiky iron wings.

"The Maker does have a sense of humor doesn't he?" Hawke muttered angrily. "You've come to hate me for all reasons  _but_ for being a mage."

Suddenly, Fenris chuckled and shook his head, and his eyes filled with the sort of all-knowing darkness that just looked and felt unnerving even for her. "I've never hated you, Hawke." She frowned of course, and clawed his wrists tighter, but he seemed perfectly content in spite of it. He eyed her dauntlessly and continued, "Not for being a mage, nor for any other reason from the long list of flaws that make up who you are."

"Never, you say," Hawke uttered with narrowed eyes.

He ignored her and went on, "You thought it to be so, you convinced yourself that it is so, even when you called me 'friend'. She tightened her hands on his wrists in irritation, just as he tightened his eyes. "Isn't that right?"

"Wrong, so very wrong," Hawke uttered. "I've always considered you a friend and the only reason I say you hate me is because there is clear evidence now that you do, or is this testament to your undying affection?"

His mind was blank again. He couldn't be tortured by her, belong to her! Have that fragile a creature hold him powerless. But his soul went from fourth gear into overdrive, and other things too. And surely she saw that. She wouldn't miss anything, not her. But she wouldn't let him go.

Fenris didn't even wince, and his eyes fell halfway. "Wasn't it you who called for the duel, Hawke?"

"Correct, Fenris, I called for a duel." She shrugged dispassionately. "Where are the swords?"

"Well I did not call for a punch in the face either but you see how things usually work out in life," Fenris said derisively.

She laughed. "Oh, I see. You did not call for a makeover, and yet you've got two of them and like all the other things that are wrong in your life, I am to blame."

Now he laughed. "May I remind you of a little talk we had not long ago, Hawke?"

"Oh I can't wait to hear this pretentious argument," she muttered grumpily.

"'I might be able to help with your problems, or give you a few more'," Fenris quoted. "Well, do you recall or should I go on?"

"What in the name of—"

Fenris rolled his eyes and continued, "And I said, 'Only a few?' and you said, what, well you said, 'It depends if I really work at it'." He narrowed his eyes and smirked. "You do mean everything you say, don't you?"

"Well now," Hawke said with a grin. "Doesn't that follow that you had allowed me to go forth with it, and my statement also  _came true_?"

"That is exactly my point," Fenris said flatly.

"Then your lashing out on me in your mansion was unjustified, wasn't it?" Hawke fired back.

Fenris shrugged and looked down. "In a way, it was." He looked to his right and said, "In that same way, your lashing out on me now is too."

"Excuse me?" Hawke said in outrage.

Fenris broke into a wide grin and offered the winner of all arguments. "Well, is it not fair that I would also give you some problems, granted not really working at them very hard in my current state?"

Not bad for somebody who could have died five minutes ago. But it was like reinhabiting the situation, to speak, and she must have known that, but it was awful to look right at her and say these things openly, and to keep seeing her so infuriated, and smelling that perfume.

She frowned heavily and shouted, "Take you me for a sponge?"

He didn't know how to answer this, appearing genuinely bewildered. "I… don't?"

"Do not dare logic your way out of this," Hawke said angrily.

He shut his eyes for a second.  _Do I want her to win this argument? What do I want to happen, and what does it matter what I want!_

But he remained amused. "Well if you spend word for word with me, Princess, I shall make your wit bankrupt."

She narrowed her eyes and came closer to his face. "You are a flaming scullion, Fenris. A pigeon-egg and an infirm of purpose. A scurvy rampallian once and a raging fustilarian twice."

"And what, milady?" Fenris said mockingly, his expression becoming flat and cold as he got one hand out and stroke the skin of her back beneath her shirt. "You will tickle my catastrophe?"

"Oh what a mission that would be!" Hawke said contemptuously, appearing as though she hadn't noticed his hand at all. He could feel her anger like it was heat. "Would that I could put you in a cauldron of lead and usurer's grease amongst a whole million of flaming dragons and there boil like a gammon of bacon, that will never be enough."

"Well… thank goodness for that," Fenris said sarcastically, and then with the right possessed hand of his, he slowly lifted one of her legs up beside him. "Your dispassion towards me is utterly clear."

She curled her lips in annoyance and said, "You, Fenris, appear nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors."

Give her a toga or a crown and she would have been the most spirited ruler and spokesman in a thousand years, should she stay drunk her whole life.

"All I understand from that is that my name is indeed, Fenris," he said. He dauntlessly stroked her leg and eyed her with indifference.

"I see what you're trying to do now that anger, strength and logic haven't done you any office with me," Hawke said cuttingly. "Why you subtle, perjured, half-faced scamp."

Fenris smirked a little, then said, "You left out resourceful."

Hawke scowled again and waved a dismissive hand. "It won't work. Your kiss is as comfortless as frozen water is— Fenris rolled his eyes — to a starved snake."

"Yes, yes, whatever," he growled.

Then Fenris launched forward, grabbed her dismissive hand, squeezed her lifted leg with the other one and saw himself kissing her suddenly, subduing her with kisses, and trying so very hard not to rip her shirt off entirely. Time just to enjoy the intensity of the situation, the way it so marvelously suggested the forbidden, even in this forbidden place. He couldn't think of her in any other way, except in his arms with him kissing her. And she could have struck him and he still wouldn't have cared at this point.

He couldn't bring more logic to this than to the general scheme of things that had happened since he went out the Hanged Man up until this point. It was just whole lot of emotion, a lot of undisguised and incomprehensible emotion, and he was not good with emotions. Doubled by the fact that he was certainly not good with surprises like Hawke's unerring metamorphosis into a bowl of anger and hatred and what he could only call a steaming brew of Ferelden curses all because of and directed at him.

Of course, he  _tried_ bringing reason into it, but when dealing with Hawke, he always found himself using unfamiliar mental muscles.

He only went ahead and made that little indescribable gesture that said all right to her. And she knelt up and pressed against him, the incarnation of utter longing for him coming out to bite her, and he slipped one arm over her back, across the hot skin underneath. His hand was cold from the fear and she was all hot from the anger. He could see the feeling penetrating her, coursing through her limbs.

Physical affection was never easy with him, though he had come a long way to get used to it, all while he'd never taken her to his bed, not that she seemed to wish it, and not that he ever actually thought to ask, which made for a nice tension. One could learn a lot about sensuality from Hawke just by watching her walk across a room, if you had the eye to spot it. And it was much better than the alternative of having his head ripped off.

Yes, this could teach the gods of war and gods of love a whole new fresh perspective on both subjects. They could teach them how to join forces without it ending in devastation. And having Hawke around for what seemed like ages of friendship and understanding now unraveled and he threw it all away to become this vile, awful, ungrateful person. Or an infirm of purpose, as she said, since all the other words just seemed like the kind you'd come up with by randomly writing blindfolded on a parcel while sniffing up devil dust and powdered copper sulphate.

And what seemed like an eternity was actually no more than seven seconds that it lasted before she pulled away, catching his last breath on her lips and eyed him with somewhat indefinable emotion at that point. He would have picked her up, crushed her to him. But she drew away quickly, and left him sort of shivering on his knees, feeling the warm prickling sensation in his limbs again and that strange numbness in his mouth.

He had that odd desire to speak to her, explain something to her, the same urge that had come over him dime a dozen, and again the anguish—why the hell would she care at this point? He'd disappointed her now more than ever with his blunder. Tomorrow, tomorrow he would have to remember this and explain everything. Not today. Today he wanted to feel her as much as he possibly could.

He followed her eyes and remained silent, waiting. For a moment he couldn't see her clearly. She was all soft at the edges. Then her face burned through. She was a little taken from the exertion, her rouged lips shimmering ever so slightly, her eyes a poor mirror of whatever she was thinking, but full of a vague emotion. She was immovable for a few more seconds, so he went for her again, but she shoved him against the wall and eyed him with an impenetrable expression.

"You seem like a reasonable fellow," Hawke said. "I hate to kill you."

"You seem like a reasonable lady," Fenris said. "I hate to die."

And with that she came back and nudged at his lips, opening his mouth, and that electric shock came again. His mouth locked tight on her and there came a familiar, but more powerful than ever sensation he had never really quite cared to describe, but now understood, that it was belonging. In a different, infinitely different way than what he had come to understand belonging. It was belonging to her as she belonged to him, and their souls and their bodies were made for one another no amount of inner our outside force could sever this reality. And with that, he kissed her like this was his last moments on earth. He kissed her like he had her on a hook. He could hold her that way, no matter how helpless she had him, that's how strong the current was. He could lift her by the sheer power of it, draw her out of herself, and when through this delirium he felt her breasts pushing against him, he knew he'd done it, that he had her.

And her kiss was hot, and luscious and sweet, far beyond driven. Her nails pinched the flesh on his neck harder, and the nails from her other hand were clawing into his back, but the pain mingled with the force passing out of him into her. She was up on tiptoe with her whole weight against him, the other leg left only for him to support and claw into like a devil going up for the exquisite roundness of her pants. But she didn't allow it. She cocked both his hands and kept them in place against the wall with merciless force. He didn't seem to mind at first. He was feasting on her, his tongue inside of her, and that was enough for the ardent visage that made his case, even with his wrists ground into her restraint trying to break loose beyond his control.

"You're a smart aleck, aren't you?" she said in a low, almost loving voice. "You've got a real smart mouth, smarter than me at times. And you're free. You're not under my command, but neither under your own."

He almost said, "Yes, I am, really, I am. I will leave you be if you let me go", but he didn't say anything at all.

She kissed him again, bringing the tiny hairs up all over his body because it was so maddeningly light. Just a taste of her mouth. Whiff of her perfume again. "We're going to learn a few lessons," Hawke said, "on what happens when you play with the 'hot-headed Ferelden'."

"I am a real fast learner," Fenris said. He turned his head away from her. What the hell was he trying to do? It was bad enough. But he couldn't stand it, the sight of her hair, the red lips and the plunging neck of the blouse.

But then again, his mind was empty and he could have never foreseen that she was about to break him. She left one of his wrists free and caught him firmly down south. And her nails stroke against the fabric delicately, devilishly, and followed the hardness up its length as if they've known it forever. He hadn't the power of mind or else to stop her, even his free hand lost all motion. And she continued kissing him, delicately clamping his lips, and her tongue moving with impossible grace, but it was that of an all-knowing agile serpent tangling itself around the prey. And her nails played down there with the same delicate, serpent-like manner. And he'd never know what to call it, but something entirely foreign, though belonging to him, and mind-blowingly electrical came about. She brushed the nails a bit harder going up, encaged it and pushed a finger against the very top. And with that his breath became a short, but loud profane groan.

Well now _… now_  he was  _bucked._

Now he pays for it, not just the smart cracks, but having her. That's it, isn't it? He almost cringed. After all, it was his doing. She paid him back with the same dime, and then some. Hawke was not to be played with, not even in her worst state of functioning. And no matter how much you want it or love it, in the end you were the one who loses. And she'd know it to be true. She was the boss.

He stood paralyzed with desire and rage. He was locked out of her, and she was all over him. She looked so feminine and fragile, even with overpowering him, her cheeks beating with a deep flush and the same flush on her throat and what he could see of the cleavage he had made with the sword. He couldn't catch his breath. And he couldn't explain it, but it's as if her lips, her breasts and that devil of a hand were all whispering to him, "It's worse than being whipped isn't it? Being tortured with pleasure?"

He banished the thought. Too gentle, too delicious, and a low buzzing pleasure coursing through his limbs from that one heated little mouth and one fragile little hand. She crushed him totally, and he couldn't do anything with his hands, even if what he wanted to do was destroy what was covering her and touch her all over. The soreness and the desire came in flashes. He let them come and old rhythms started— _something bad is going to happen, well, maybe I should really be going now_ —the low, shuddering alarm. Some fragment of a thought was running through his mind.  _But you belong to her,_ he thought _. Don't think of anything else. You belong to her, she belongs to you, by choice alone._

In the meantime, she broke the kiss and moved her lips to his neck, biting it in slow motions as if to harrow him.

He thought of her under him again, her toughness and her softness, and that sooner rather than later she _will_  be entirely naked under him if it's the last thing he did, and the boil was rolling. He wanted to say something to her suddenly, pierce the tension. But he didn't dare. And he didn't know exactly what it was he wanted to say.

But then came her actual voice breathing hot air on his neck, and the sound of it was as maddening as everything else of her, "You want me, don't you?"

"Like to ravage you until you cannot walk anymore," Fenris whispered with his eyes closed, without even thinking. They surprised him entirely. And those he would come to understand were the words and the voice of a deeply aroused man with his whole existence going into overdrive.

If he'd even been this hard before he couldn't remember it. If he had ever been teased to this point before, he'd blotted it out.

In a quick darting motion, he caught her mouth again and drew on it before she could get away. She pulled in again, softening all over, that same scorching current running through it, and the kiss almost touched off the bomb. But abruptly, he felt a sort of searing sensation, and the soft, hot weight of her body move away.

"Hawke," he whispered, he didn't even know why.

And she stayed still, very close, looking at him. There was some instantaneous sense of why this was so horrific, that this had in fact, nothing to do with what he had felt before when being subdued, that he was free to do with he wanted and that this was a mage, who though very mad at him now and played with him, did not intend it as mockery and did not command him with anything, and that all her actions in history should they be summed up, meant that this was a woman who wanted all that was best for him. And he hadn't seen it, and he didn't see.

"I'm scared to death for you," Fenris whispered. He could hear the amazement in his own voice He was speaking so low he wondered if she could hear him. "I mean I… this is difficult, it's…"

There was some little change in her face. Some slight snap in her expression. Maker, she was beautiful. It was like in this moment her face opened up, like it became the inside of her instead of what she wanted it to be on the outside world.

She pulled away and he fixed his eyes upon her as she did, searching in it for some answer.

"I am not yours to ravage or to be scared to death for," Hawke said. "So get used to disappointment."

"That's not what I—"

She cut him and said, "And the last lesson is—it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

He frowned, silently demanding more of an explanation.

And she offered him one. "When you are done going into extremes, being pissed at me, grow cold and distant only to become raging jealous and threatening strangers with death on the street at night, doubled by the fact that you are stubbornly keeping your emotions hidden, your past, your feelings, your worries and your doubts, tripled by the fact that you are paranoid and incredibly unreasonable, constructing endless theories on how everything I've done is because you're my 'little project' and that I am disrespecting boundaries and that I shouldn't get into your life because I have no idea what it was like to be in your shoes, I have not been a slave, so I would never understand and I shouldn't try… or that to the contrary, all I do is simply a bit to push you away," she said assertively, eyes narrowed and then she inhaled. "Then buy me a drink and we'll talk. I promise we'll talk all night and the morning after that and day after that and the night after that." She raised her hand, or more precisely, one finger. "'Til then, up yours."

An endless parade of prying noses had suffocated him with lessons and pieces of advice for over a month now, but the last person and the only one to really give it to him was Hawke in the end.

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

And with that, she grabbed her sword from the ground, made haste away from the dark alley, down the stairs and disappeared.

Fenris sighed. He shuddered, brushed the hair away from his forehead with his arm and with the other tried to lessen the throbbing pulse of his heartbeat. He grabbed his own sword from the ground and asked himself however they ended up in this situation in the first place. Fixing problems with duels, how resourceful. Fixing the duel problem with kisses, how incredibly … how remarkably, tremendously, abhorrently stupid.

Right now, the only thing he wanted to fix was another drink. And a  _cold_ one between his legs.

* * *

**A few minutes later, Outside The Hanged Man**

Varric ran into her outside, beckoning for Aveline to go back. "Hawke, what hap—"

She walked past him with her eyes and cheeks completely flushed and said, "He's alive and fine. I won. Don't want to talk about it. Sorry for everything. See you inside."

* * *

**Another few minutes later, Outside The Hanged Man**

If he couldn't get something out of the hot-headed Ferelden, more importantly, if he  _shouldn't,_ Varric was going to settle this with someone only slightly more reasonable in his eyes.

He produced a cigar in the time it would take for the other mighty duelist to come back. Blowing up the smoke above his head and leaning against the wall, he really thought about it. In a way, he really was Donnen Brennacovick, in that he was getting really tired and old for this  _shit._

He tried not to think of the worst possible scenario. Actually he thought what would even be the worst possible scenario. What would be worse? Hawke killing Fenris or Fenris killing Hawke? Or both dying from exhaustion, or getting killed by a band of street thugs because they were distracted and exhausted? What would he even do without them?

And what the hell was Hawke on about. Why… how… he wouldn't even think. He shuddered, shivers going down his spine, remembering how horrifying shouty beast she turned into.

Something of an ancient philosophy of his came back in his worried mind. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a person has you entirely at their mercy, then hope like hell that person is an evil person. Because the evil like power and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk, they'll gloat and they'll shout endless witty one-liners at you. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of the kill like another man will put off a good cigar on a rainy day. So hope like hell your rival is an evil person. A good person will kill you with hardly a word.

If Hawke was saying he was fine, though it was arguable as to how one should define  _fine,_ then this summed up as a pretty good Tuesda— _Wednesday_. And he wouldn't mind if she was only a bit evil, and not that good this time.

And then he saw something coming out of the shadows, something white, tan, scurvy and a bit purple under the eye that was stumbling and almost literally dragging itself in his direction. Upon coming closer, he saw that  _it_ was Fenris, limping, and the purple thing on his face was quite the fine bruise under his eye, and the one eye was half-closed. His shirt and pants and shoes however were clean, neat and sparkly. Hawke was so thoughtful.

"What the hell happened to you?" Varric shouted in amazement.

"Hawke happened," Fenris muttered in a low voice and he shrugged. "She's a very happening girl."

"I'll say," Varric said, and he couldn't help but snort a little and chuckle. "You've got beaten up by a girl."

"What stands as girl and what stands as Hawke are entirely different things when it comes to combat… and almost everything as a matter of fact," Fenris said defensively.

"Well that's a better argument than 'I let her win'," Varric said.

"She didn't win," Fenris said, his eyebrows frowning. "Not the duel. And this isn't over."

"Yes it is," Varric said and formed a barrier with his arm to block his way. "Yes it  _is._ "

"No it is  _not,_ " Fenris hissed.

"You're quickly getting on my nerves, elf," Varric pressed angrily with his arms crossed.

"Well, it's not as if I needed a ladder or anything," Fenris mumbled arrogantly, stumbling on his feet.

"You're drunk, Lord," Varric said, stretching his arms out and his voice became only a bit softer. "Tomorrow is another day. Even if tomorrow is technically today already."

"Sad isn't it?" Fenris drawled and swayed on his feet.

"That you're both idiots?" Varric asked directly, his voice becoming more cutting now.

Fenris narrowed his eyes and took a step forward as he articulated, "You don't know us."

"Friend, you don't know a thing about a woman until she's drunk  _and_ mad at you," Varric pressed again angrily, pointing at him and the bruise under his eye. "You've got your answer, now cool off."

"I must have blacked out when that answered arrived into the harbor of my reason," Fenris muttered rather calmly, looking up in the night sky and getting lost in it, about to fall.

"What the hell is going on in that little forsaken mind of yours?!" Varric shouted at Fenris and was about to hit him.

"Nothing," Fenris articulated flatly, trying to keep straight.

"Exactly, you are most right, Sir!" Varric exclaimed in anger. "You ignore her all night and go bananas the minute she talks to a guy. And then she beat the crap out of you. So either quit your act or stay away from her, you hear me?" he shouted. "I don't want drama on my fucking name day. Is that clear?"

A few seconds passed, and Fenris finally curled his lips and nodded with a slight hint of irritation, "Affirmative."

"Good," Varric muttered with narrowed eyes. "You're my friends and my affection for you both stretches out of cosmic proportions, but this is ridiculous."

"I know," Fenris answered quietly. "It is my fault. I will leave her be."

"Whatever you do, just don't screw this up. Not tonight, I mean…" Varric scratched his head and paused, looking away from him. "I've been cheering for you for as long as I can remember."

"Oh?" Fenris asked in surprise, leaning on the wall, half about to fall.

"Not the time for heart-breaking stories, elf," Varric said charmingly. "Come on, let's get you inside. And hands off the yahoo-juice."

"The what?" Fenris drawled as he stumbled into Varric.

He caught the elf in place and dragged him inside, "That."

 


	49. In The Beginning There Was Nothing

**5 minutes before Varric and Fenris came back**

It was long after midnight and the stars were aligning gracefully around the moon into the seeming constellation of general panic. The air was full of the busy silence of the night, which was created by hundreds of small furry things treading very carefully in the hope of finding dinner while avoiding being the main course at The Hanged Man.

Something like a hot and cold rush of air stormed into the place. The door opened with the sound of a howling wind, blowing in lonesome off the street. The windblown silence caught a distinct melody of peril. All that was missing was an opening rattle of percussion echoing the menacing warning of a venomous snake and an eerie twang of a jaw harp to  _really_  set the scene. You could practically hear some imaginary tumbleweed blowing ominously across Lowtown and into the tavern, while rival swordsmen stared each other down under the blazing sun. Only that it was night and there was only one swordsman, and it was a woman, and she was dressed in finery that while still scruffy did not really raise an urgency to innocently back away or look down and continue drinking, and only those few unfortunate souls that knew her felt the alarm— _hold tight on your weapon, something terrible is about to happen._

And there was another unfortunate soul that while not entirely innocent in the larger scheme of things, did not exactly  _at the moment_ deserved that hot and cold glance of the silent redhead while the universe terribly miscalculated his position into her face as he bumped into her. It was the kind of glance that automatically triggers your life to flash before your eyes, only that his eyes were busy staring down an alternate life where something else would  _flash_ him. Fortunately for him, something did flash him,  _shovingly,_ and the man literally flew in mid-air and landed behind the bar and there was the distinct metallic sound of pots and mugs clanking against the skull and hitting the floor, whichever one that was.

There was general shocked silence, and then the quick-thinking audience raised their pints and went vigorously, "Hawke!". It was more of a powerful disguised salute of  _Please don't kill us_ rather than a praise of entertainment.

Completely ignoring this, and pacing towards the table where her companions were sitting, Hawke grabbed Isabela's pint and urgently finished it. There came a scowl of protest, but there was a mutual agreement in the air that they would not shoot the first  _sound._

Conveniently, Hawke fired the first few vibrations that somewhat passed for speech, in sounds and tones that convincingly passed for incessant growling.

"Misbegotten unchin-snouted lily-livered Wart-neckéd fen-sucked  _popinjay_."

There was general confusion and agreement that this was not directed to them and also that this was an incoherent congregation of coherent-sounding words. There flashed another little question if Hawke was attempting to re-enact Fenris's pacing and swearing with a little translation that was not really very helpful.

"Coffee?" a low innocent sound came from Isabela.

Hawke gave her a look. "Why thou leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Rivaini pouch!"

"Now wait a second, I am not puke-stocking!" Isabela protested nervously. And then she not so nervously added, "Watch your language, Ferelden bitch."

Hawke gave her the same look. "Those were carefully chosen words, in fact."

"Used with great undisguised anger," Isabela said. "Do you have something in particular you need to get off your chest, Hawke?"

She took the untouched Jäger and commenced to clear her throat and drain her wit. Then she said very calmly, "Methink'st thou art a general offence to humanity and every man should beat thee."

"Methink'st?" Isabela asked with a snort.

"Quite so," Hawke said.

"Why are you speaking in old common Ferelden?" came another innocent low question from Anders.

"For I can," Hawke answered nonchalantly. Then came another three or four good gulps of old common poison.

"How about you tone down the booze, if you can't the swears," Anders suggested innocently.

"I refuse," Hawke replied politely.

She was comparatively close to the child born out from a burley-brained drunken indecent miscreant and an esteemed, reasonable and  _decent_ aristocrat, and the child was infected with a grave case of smartassery twenty-three years later.

"Er… Maybe a bit of coffee  _would_  help," Anders faintly suggested to Isabela.

"And a quick attitude check for little Miss High and Condescending," Isabela said grumpily.

"How now, wool-sack, what mutter you?" Hawke said, taking a nonchalant stip.

"That's it," Isabela snapped and got up. Anders caught her by the arm and shook his head frantically.

Hawke didn't wince at all, instead she laughed a bit under her breath and grinned ever so elusively. "Why now, get thee to a nunnery, will you?"

"Hawke, how about we go outside, yes?" Anders proposed immediately. He got up from the bench and went behind her. "Hawke?"

But she kept staring through Isabela and said, "You dear, better check your attitude. I am most serious now. You know what I speak of and you also know that everything I've said about you is true."

Isabela now grinned and crossed her arms. "Oh, whatever do you mean."

Hawke waved this away and said, "My point exactly. You are as a candle, the better burnt out."

"Outside, Hawke?" Anders pleaded.

He grabbed her by the elbow and tried to drag her with him. She snapped away and caught him by the collar of his robe, "And you. Thou fishified scale-sided vassal."

"Fishif— _what_ —"

"You breathe falsehood and you lie," Hawke said firmly.

"What do I—"

She ignored him and went on, shaking him a bit, "Hence, horrible villain, or I'll spurn thine eyes like balls before me! I'll unhair thy head and whip you with wire, and stew thee in brine, and leave you smarting in lingering pickle!"

Several muscles in his throat jumped in terror and his eyes went blank. "Aveline!" he shouted, either for a savior or for a translator.

"Calm thy tits, you barnacle," Hawke said and calmly put him down. What a paradox, being hot-headed and then just as quickly appear perfectly calm and reasonable and make her interlocutor feel like a fool. And somewhat a feather-light little ant who was very close to being crushed. Mercy, yes, how very  _reasonable_ of her.

* * *

**A few minutes later**

"Where is she?"

Varric was close to slipping under that thin line people with a very persuasive aura of sanity _tripped_ over just before they blow a gasket. That one vein on his forehead growing into a living, throbbing bas-relief belonged to that series of legends no one believed but served as a nice mythical prototype to bullshit about once they were out of the ritual amiable wild exaggerations.

Despite that there was  _a lot_ to exaggerate about in Kirkwall, The Hanged Man suffered from the curse of what you could however oxymoronically call "calm mass hysteria". A mass hysteria that was too lazy and too taken with booze, and likewise much too tremendously flummoxed by general reality for their mind to judge when danger was knocking on the door or when it directly  _bashed_  it down. They simply took record of it, from a far far away land, the way the distance from here to the bar seemed at arm's length but from here to the bathroom it seemed this long, precarious, wild path where walls just seemed to bump into you  _everywhere_ you turn.

No, a humongous poisonous semi-reptilian could have walked into the tavern and no one would even bat an eye. However, a week later, someone  _would_ out of the blue come up with a wild story of how they saw a green semi-reptilian with three eyes, absent nose and throw in a bejewelled horn or two to  _really_ catch his audience's attention, but no one would believe him, much like he would not believe himself, unbeknownst that he was unintentionally telling the truth.

And that was the beauty and mystery of the brain—an organ that much like the King in chess, was the most important piece in the set that also happened to be the most neglected in its usage until the very last moment when it was about to be  _bucked—_ its power always either  _under_ \- or  _over_ estimated exactly in the wrong moment, which made for a nice paradox regarding who was at fault, the man or the brain. They both however appeared to fancy their right in choosing to exist separately from each other, as Hawke said, and this reality lied at the heart of all the world's problems – incapability of simply  _estimating._

And tales were plenty, and it was not only Varric who liked to befrill and catastrophize every detail. However, the legend of the quadruple V motif (Varric's Vicious Vein from The Void) had only once come true in the Deep Roads upon his brother's betrayal, and no one wished, and no one dared to mention it _ever_  again after that.

Currently that vein on his forehead was shyly coming out and catching wings from its carefully guarded cocoon and again, this remained just as carefully unnoticed to the general sloshed and tanked-up audience. Corff however was not drunk, and he was also not very resistant and doughty like his father Coriff when it came to soul-shuddering episodes of thorough interrogation. He lacked that one  _i_ for _indomitable._

" _Where_ is she," Varric's voice came to slaughter Corff's baby-soft skin and raise all the baby-soft hairs on his relatively manly body.

"I don't know," Corff drawled nervously, taking one step too many away from the bar.

To which Varric leaned over the bar with impossibly sharp semi-reptilian eyes and said, "You know I know you know where she went."

"I— he quickly lost thought —what?"

"Hawke. Where.  _Now._ "

Corff's early on-set declining cardiovascular system, courtesy of his late mother's poor genetics, came at a halt and the forty-three muscles of his face practically  _hid_ behind his skull, which was probably why his skin turned the same kind of impossibly gleaming white of Fenris's hair.

"Sherentdaroomanseddowakerapinalfaara."

Well, if the tongue was also made out of bone these were the clacking sounds it would make as it hit teeth in—for want of a better word— an attempt to speak.

"Come again?" Varric demanded very calmly.

Corff couldn't possibly hate his father now more than ever for proceeding early to go dead drunk and off to happy dreamland. He was the sturdy gatekeeper, guard, manager, tax doer, advertiser, economical prophet and now and then the monosyllabic but effective spokesman when faced with the occasional nutjob. And what would be worse? A fist from Varric or a fist from Father dearest? It  _could_ have been a close tie.

He caught his throat and cleared it, more to outrun Varric from flinging a hand to grab it first and choke the life out of him, and repeated, "She rented a room—Varric's eyes tightened, so he blocked for a second—an-an-andssaid  _totototooth_ —he cleared his throat again optimistically—wake'er  _upupupppuh_ in hah-hah- _half_  anorah— _hahaha-_ HOUR _._ "

The Maker  _had_ to exist. There was no amount of hazardous mysteriously intelligent dark and white matter that could have possibly cared to put a stop to Varric's unnerving presentation of calmly verbalized bestial urges. Of course his nervous system had already been playfully suffocated by the dark matter in his brain, and his skin was being drained by white, as far as his anatomy went back slowly away from the bar.

Varric took his hands away from the bar and walked away without a word. Corff finally caught his breath and decided that if he survived this night, first thing tomorrow he would tell Norah that he had been in love with her for three silent cowardly secretive years. And he would leave out the cowardly part out because bitches like men of mystery, not men from Chickenshit Anonymous, as he overheard Varric explain once.

He detected that the poor fellow was telling the truth, and since the story matched the general situation of things, he decided halfway up the stairs to turn around and have a calm, calm drink. However his foot remained on that same step, unlike his eyebrows which went dangerously oblique and the vein on his forehead went relatively  _zigzag_ when he saw Fenris come out of his room with a sealed bottle of unknown Ferelden booze.

Elf, his eyes said, prepare to die.

Elf, Fenris assumed, go fetch me a drink.

He turned around and fetched another bottle from the grand bowl of ice and silently gave it to him. Varric took it and his eyes silently followed him go down the stairs and about to take a seat at their old empty table. He inhaled calm happy thoughts and went down the stairs behind him, then viciously smashed those happy thoughts to the more dormant  _too-old-for-this-shit_ mental area.

"Elf if you open that bottle I swear I'm gonna beat you in the head with it," Varric thus said with the Index Arrow-Finger of Perfect Shots pointed at the bull's-eye that made Fenris's head.

"Is it too much to ask that I walk home tonight unmolested?" Fenris asked tiredly.

He opened the bottle, took one sip and placed it between his thighs again. He noticed Fenris's non-purple eye flinching every few seconds.

"Booze won't help with the pain, highness," Varric said fatherly, taking a seat beside him. "Not at this point anyhow."

Fenris appeared very tense. He pressed his lips and muttered without looking at him, "Not with the pain you're thinking, no."

"What, well neither with the eye nor with the soul," Varric said philosophically.

"I suggest you cease with the concern and enjoy your night," Fenris said calmly. He flung his hand out and went on, "Go entertain your guests or …" he paused and curled a lip, "mingle, or whatever it is you do."

Varric opened his mouth to protest but Fenris turned his head to him and nodded amiably. "I am fine."

He couldn't really protest. Varric had been too busy to mingle and schmooze his guests and then too busy battling aneurisms for the thought to arrive in the sanctum of his mind and connect the dots—that even though it was clear the two had a serious argument somewhere before dessert, and it had to do with the other flabbergasting news  _hanging_  and  _sitting_ aroundin the mansion besides the dessert, both of them tried not to exchange any witty murderous words, Fenris blocked his anger and turned it into cold calmness solely for the purpose of not ruining Varric's day, Hawke didn't join their table solely not to accidentally trigger something that would ruin Varric's day, and … well, afterwards all that effort went shit-straight to the garbage; but after  _that_ terrible incident they still tried. Hawke made the reasonable call to sleep it off a bit, Fenris made the reasonable call of sittingit off a bit.

All in all, he would have to give them a medal tomorrow.

"Fair enough, I guess," Varric said. "But when I come back to the crazy's table, please join and for the love of my ancestors stop being so damn blue."

Fenris nodded silently and took his eyes away from him. Varric watched him for two more seconds before he left, two seconds in which he noticed that Fenris was not very urgent in drinking like before, but clutched to that bottle as if it was his only point of balance. And before he could give the act a romantic meaning of an elf holding on to a Ferelden object in an effort not to crumble down and break over his lost Ferelden maiden and his huge blunder, he remembered the unbruised eye twitching and tried with all his strong dwarven lungs not to blow up in little snorts—he thought of the wrong kind of _blue._

In the time that followed, Fenris remained at the empty table, occasionally taking a few sips and staring down at the floor. He thought about what he said. The helping with problems and giving a few more in the process. Hawke was the kind to joke, but under many of those jokes lurked more often than not, an actual truth. She did mean almost about everything she said, and then thinking back, he decided he also meant everything he had said. He was a little bewildered by the fact that he kept waiting for the anger to come out again, some sort of negative feeling, an inconvenience, another protest, but he was completely absent of them. He didn't mind how she lashed out on him. Perhaps this was how she felt when he assaulted her in Antiva.

And then it dawned on him that in the same way that he used the argument of "You give me problems but I might also give you some" it worked for what she had said that one night in Antiva, that she was the only one who could bump horns with him and resist. And it was true, and it was also good, what she did, because it discarded his theory that he was no more than a monster behind an appearance of a reasonable knightly elf with a few fancy markings. They were just a pleasant pattern to draw the innocent eye and leave its guard down before the kill. That theory was more or less over now.

Well, a lot of his theories were over now, but even so, perhaps this time he was the one to make her see the truth. Perhaps with this he showed her  _acceptance_. In a way, he knew all along that this was something Hawke had always needed, but taught herself not to wish it or waste her time seeking it. More times than not, there was none to be found, he was sure.

And what would she do when acceptance found  _her_? He would have to see tomorrow. And he would also have to pay her a visit, drag her out, take her on a walk and apologize. For...  _something._  He sighed—

He forgot what it was that he was sorry for, but he still felt guilty, and there were certainly some other details that he had overlooked, and that was not something his thorough analytic mind was used to, and this bothered him, and there was nothing to do now of course, so he resolved that he would remember the details after a good night's sleep.

Meanwhile, Hawke's mabari, Mojo, paid him a visit and stared at him in an elusive manner. He considered that it had, for a dog, a very offensive and  _knowing_  look.

There was an urban myth saying that some mabaris were not only very intelligent, but that some of them could talk. As in, growling words with the occasional excessive drool, perhaps. But it was still just a myth. It was always a friend of a friend who had heard it talk, and it was never anyone who had seen it. That was the tradition of words travelling from one naive mouth to the other, and believing was a term used very lightly in this place. People didn't really want to  _see_  anything, therefore believing stuff was really, very easy. You could see how clearly the world was flawed by this and how every other idiocy was tied to the core of it in strong knots, one by one, and then— _splosh._ Drunken philosophical Hawke was right yet again—an apocalypse was really not that  _unreasonable_ a demand.

And even so, the mabari in front of Fenris didn't look as if it could talk, but it  _did_ look as if it could swear.

Fenris gave it a cold look. "If you came here to judge me you can just leave."

Mojo immediately narrowed his eyes and commenced to the usual mabari snarl that the rest of the world understood as, "I don't like your tone, mister."

Fenris tightened his eyes too, unyieldingly, and commenced to the usual silence the rest of the world understood as, "—"

The staring match went on for several more seconds, then Mojo decided that this was pointless, and that also, his fellow cold-staring rival was not very bright insofar to understand that what it was demanding was a thorough belly rub. Two-legged beings were simply clueless. It walked away with a look that cut you dismissively.

Two-legged clueless Fenris sighed. Dog minds were simple, and also sharp. Dogs never spent time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they had missed. The whole play field of the wide and wild world was neatly expressed to its rawest core as things : to eat, to mate with, to run away from and rocks; this freed the mind from stretching everything out of its proportions and getting overwhelmed with unnecessary thoughts. It gave the mind a cutting edge only to the things that really mattered.

The ordinary man however thought about all sorts of things around the clock on all sorts of levels with interruptions from dozens of all sorts of other thoughts. There were thoughts about to be said, which he was still learning  _and_ failing at half the time, and private thoughts, which he absolutely specialized in, and real thoughts, which were really not a very present experience at the moment, and thoughts about thoughts, like now, and a whole latitude of mysterious and inexplicable subconscious thoughts and—

…Oh, well  _now_  his right testicle paid a visit to winter-wonderland Ferelden, and it started to hurt in a whole new way, very different than the first way after it, well,  _they_  got kicked by the mighty boot of Hawke, and again, very unlike the way it…  _they_  had hurt after they got touched by the devil hand of Hawke, and well—

Will it— they— he—…  _all three_ ever get a bloody break.

* * *

**An hour later**

When Hawke came back, stumbling and smiling in the same kind of honest, crooked, zigzag manner, things started to attune to the original beat of  _appropriately_ crazy.

_Someone_ suggested that they play a different game that did not unsystematically— _someone_ made sure to carefully get away with the play of semantics—stole coin out of people's pockets and did not require a lot of  _thinking_ or bluffing, but did involve drinking as a reward disguised as punishment. So getting those three complicated actions out of the way and carefully not overlooking the one thing everybody wanted, needed, were looking for under the table, etcetera, someone came up with the fine solution of playing  _Never have I ever._

Never have I ever heard a more idiotic suggestion, Fenris thought, after he had thoroughly familiarized himself with the general rules and principles of the idiotic game. All one of them, as it turned out. The only reasonable thing about it was that it compelled one to drink, although his mind, as always, worked very fast in dismissing the positive side of things, and as always, within reason, because he didn't need to be a genius, or well, sober, to deduct that  _he_ won't be doing a lot of drinking within the game unless someone had an awful lot of experience with torture, running, mapping unknown territories in the mind, hunting, digging holes in the earth to sleep or counting up to five with very careful grace and precision before clawing off the aorta or letting go of the pulmonary arteries in the heart before it ran out of blood to pump when he shoved his gauntlet into people's chests.

And this game compelled you to be truthful, unlike Wicked Grace or Diamondback. But choosing not to drink even if you had done whatever was said by someone else was not really  _lying_  as much as it was  _withholding_  realities that were not anyone's damned business.

He thought all these things, trying not to overlook anything, and concluded this would be awfully terrible. Although he remained very stoic about it, especially after Varric gave him a wan smile that more or less said, "I feel ya, although I simply  _can't_ for the love of Bianca veto this off  _because_ of the very obvious and compelling argument thatI have to know stuff and this is like a sodding godsend right on a silver platter. And don't give me that look, you know that I  _have_ to know!"

And Fenris gave him a look that more or less said, "Festis tan ignud morev et vaccam futueve." Which meant more literally, "Die in flames" at first and more figuratively, "—and go fuck a cow" at the end. What Varric understood was the mere swearing generality of the look and silently nodded in agreement, although if he actually knew what he was agreeing to he might just innocently turn around and leave, and at last the rest of the world understood of the look was, as always, "—"

Hawke knew about the game and seemed to be content with playing it. Behind that innocent look of agreement however lay a very wicked grinning beast that  _knew_  what was in store, because in this game you got a chance to be an absolute  _bastard_  while playing it. You didn't win at it by the drinking the most, or even drinking the least; you won by constructing the most awkward and revealing social situation possible and she was already a champion at making people uncomfortable.

And the bottles were neatly aligned on the table, then drawn into a circle, then a rectangle and a hexagon, and then Varric slapped Hawke's hand away from them and gave the verbal signal that the game could begin that went, "Aye, ho—just fucking  _start_ already, I'm thirsty!"

The first to go was Hawke so that she would stop playing with the bottles, Varric suggested. She thought about it, carefully following the lazy moth flying around with her eyes, and then something appeared to clonk into place. She assumed a little smile, grabbed a bottle and said, "Never have I ever been in prison."

Anders, Isabela and surprisingly, Aveline drank away. Fenris thought about it. He was  _in_ a prison, but he had never been  _to_ prison, yet. He resolved not to drink at this time.

"You've been to prison, Captain?" Varric asked with a grin. "Don't tell me you drank because you practically run one."

"I was arrested for a day with Weasley actually," Aveline said. Everyone gave her a questioning look. She shrugged innocently. "Turns out the lake was private property." Some people gave her a saucy look and Hawke patted her congratulatorily on the back.

People gave her the same questioning look. Hawke shrugged in a little proud manner. "I used to lead a dangerous gang as a kid."

"Oh?" Aveline asked in an obvious tone of calm disbelief. "And did the other kids knew this?"

"Philosophically," Hawke answered. "As in they saw me beat the crap out of people and then there was general stoic agreement that there was nothing they could do about it, and more pragmatically they also agreed that it was rather useful to have a raving maniac rescue them from bullies, angry farmers, slavers, Chantry sisters, drunken ill-breeding pignuts, Templars… wait, I repeated myself."

"Philosophically, you are insane," Aveline said rather warmly.

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity," Hawke said elusively. "I resolved to erase that line."

"So in other words, you hallucinate being a genius?" Anders asked.

"No, I more or less hallucinate that I am an insane genius," Hawke said joyfully. "Which is truly much better than hallucinating that you are sane. That is one the more common delusions of most people."

Fenris and Varric started laughing. "Like attracts like," Varric said rather triumphantly.

"Good to know some people still manage not to go crazy here," Aveline said. This wasn't an unreasonable comment. After all, Aveline was  _Captain_ of the Guard, which meant she had to stay as sane and sharp as possible, or at least give everyone else this impression. Since she was involuntarily promoted to this position, the Kirkwall Guard was  _increasing_ in importance. And they were very  _instrumental_ in handling everything in fairness and with a lot of keenness and precision. And since Guards were people—and people with subconscious inferiority complexes as your ordinary man, and more often than not also unresolved Oedipal and castration complexes— who also happened to be very  _keen,_ at any wince or other given sign of weakness Aveline would have quickly fell into the snake pit, getting eaten alive by what would turn out to be  _tentacled_  monsters—again because of unresolved Oedipal complexes—with a hot grudge against commanding powerful _castrating_  women that were increasingly annoying because of the simple fact that they had no real vices to use against them.

Hawke drew a smile and said, "What truly horrible lives they must lead."

Well, it wasn't far from the truth, but you could lead a horrible  _and_ rewarding life at the same time as long as you had nerves of steel and occasionally the coin to go on with scratching your butt nonchalantly as you walked into your office every morning at 6 A.M. sharp and prepared for the ritual shouting and face-palming.

Next went Anders. "Never have I  _eveeeer,_ " he started, as if it was safe to start doing his vocalises even when he was calm, then looked at Hawke for a second and continued, "Done it in a dark alley."

Isabela and Aveline drank. This was  _dangerous._ The Captain was loose with the truth in her current Ferelden-boozed state and to Varric's ears this was the sound of the soft flutter of official papers that instated him as the new owner of the Hanged Man in the following few days. And these were just thoughts to distract Fenris from staring at Hawke the whole time to see if she drank. She didn't. Although Anders raised an elusive eyebrow towards her and she grinned innocently and shrugged. What the  _hell_ was that—

"Never have I ever gave an Orlesian kiss," Isabela started all-smiling, and people were involuntarily shrugging and preparing to go for their bottles, "Downstairs on the Royal Gardens."

" _Oh_ ," some people quietly interjected.

Varric drank and eyebrows were raised. He shrugged with a confident air and said, "I don't kiss and tell."

"I could have sworn that you would say that," Fenris commented with a bored look. But behind that look hid a very secretive code between him and the dwarf that somewhat passed for, "Well now, good for you _._ "

Next came Aveline. She began her  _instrumental_ officering belvedere and after several seconds began, "Never have I ever woken up drunk."

There was very rapid general drinking.

Then came Merrill's turn and she began pressing her lips in an effort to find something that could sound interesting. You could guess she would say something unexpected an in attempt to make it sound dirty and then terribly fail at it. She clutched at the bottle for a few more seconds and finally said, "Never have I ever fancied someone who was not the same race."

"By fancied you mean  _had sex with_ or—?" Isabela demanded.

"Fancied as in liked, er… liked-liked. Not necessarily…" Merrill drawled. "You understand."

"How is that not  _necessarily_ associated with it? How could that be  _absent_ from the—" Isabela protested vigorously.

"Like that time, or times, up to triple digits I suspect, when you got rej—" Hawke said.

" _Of course,_ yes," Isabela cut her urgently. She drank and so did Hawke and Anders, and then Fenris froze and clutched at the bottle while battling thoughts of remaining silent or innocently excuse himself to fetch a drink from the bar. But he didn't have time anymore anyway, because Isabela asked Hawke and Anders, "Oh?"

"Well, what, do I have to talk about  _all_ of them?" Anders asked.

"Yeah, I'm with Anders on this," Hawke said all-grinningly.

"You  _fancied_ , highness, like as in, you  _have_ been capable of that, lest I should use the present tense?" Varric asked in mock surprise.

"Why yes I  _have_ been capable of that, highness," Hawke answered confidently.

_Have_ been. What the  _hell_ did that mean? That she fancied some other non-human before Fenris or that she fancied him once and now this was no longer the case? And why was he even thinking about this now when thought wasn't much of an ally when connected to the brain, reason and the natural long-lost speed of it? He couldn't help noticing words, and that served as enough of an excuse to keep pondering on it. She could tell a lie by simply placing words together that formed a truth, while the other details remained obscure and unquestioned by the others, and Fenris was no stranger to this technical finesse in communication. He almost always told the truth, and while this was honourable and a bit of a compulsion, it also proved how great a wordsmith he was even if he wasn't fully aware of it.

He was snapped back into rational motion by Varric's charming voice which almost sang, "Never have I everrr…hm." He tapped the table with his index finger of fine precision. "Never have I ever spent an unreasonably big sum of money on something I didn't really need."

Hawke and Aveline drank and Isabela thought about it for a bit and drank too. Fenris clutched at the bottle, calculating and converting the price in his mind of those vertical-lined pants which he had worn only once and then were left in a sad forgotten dark corner of the closet, the cloak and the violet girdle for mocking Hawke and her diffidence to wearing purple which also laid in the dark corner of the closet keeping the pants some company, and the small carpet he bought from Antiva which went beside the table in his room. He conclusively drank away. Of course, he felt a great  _urge_  to purchase them on account of getting  _creative_ ideas, for want of a better word, all with his brain being filled with endorphins from what was happening and not happening back then, as he calmly rationalized, but he certainly didn't  _need_ them. The most he ever needed was water, food and his sword. And a lot of times he made do without even those.

"What, you mean the mansion?" Varric asked Hawke suddenly.

"No, that I sort of need, you know, on account of being _illegal_  and more or less wanted dead or alive and everything," Hawke said grumpily. She shrugged. "I bought a journal with really thin vellum pages, which you could say was unnecessary."

"Yeah, I fell asleep halfway through reading the first sentence," Isabela commented innocently. "Something with  _vomit_ and  _orthodoxy_ and then something with  _unpardonable_   _snakes,_ and then I just went snore."

"I write my sexual fantasies in code, if you must know," Hawke said nonchalantly.

"I hope," Isabela said. "If vomit and snakes were the literal deal then I really don't want to know what you do between the sheets."

"Which would be a blessing," Hawke added with a smile. She turned her head to Varric. "Not that it isn't obvious that you did, but what exactly did you spend a shit ton of coin on that you didn't need?"

"Those Antivan blue pajamas with a lion on the night shirt," Varric said.

"You mean the  _teddybear_ ," Fenris said with a smirk. "And save your protests, I have a reliable witness," he said as he pointed at Hawke.

"You mean the awfully inebriated witness with a fondness for joyful mockery?" Varric asked nonchalantly. "Yeah, you can take my protest and shove it up your piehole."

"Don't you mean  _down_ your piehole?" Hawke asked.

"Well the pie is already down there so it's already on the way to the other end," Varric said in a serious tone.

"Ewww," people said.

"Well, there's also all this Ferelden booze you bought," Hawke quickly diverted.

"I  _needed_ them, highness," Varric said. Then he changed his mind. "That was my first impression at least. Now I regret it deeply."

"Well I always say that the poor stay—"

"Oh not this  _again_!" Varric protested.

"What?" people asked.

Varric's eyes rolled very dangerously and he tapped his thighs in outrage. "Hawke's Boot theory of the unfair consistency of economic inequality and demise among the social classes in the ruthless capitalist system."

" _Boot_ theory?" Fenris asked. People silently reasoned that this was the only sound that caught attention as well as passed for word.

"N—" Varric tried.

"The Generalized Boot Discrepancy—" Hawke stared energetically, raising hands and flinging explanatory fingers, "Regards the awfully sad reality that the poor stay or become poorer while the rich stay or become even richer."

"The end—" Varric tried again urgently.

"And the  _reason_ for it," Hawke stated while vigorously ignoring him, "Is that the rich afford to spend  _less._ "

"But why the Boot theory?" Fenris demanded.

And with that Varric rolled his eyes again at an unhealthy pace of motion.  _Of course_ they would have to debate this  _shit._  The best way to describe what Varric felt was this—you are at a meeting. Let's say it's a Merchants Guild meeting. You'd like to get away early, all while making a great effort to even show up in time or at all. So would everyone else for that matter, because let's face it, they  _always_ go the same hippity-crappy way with ruthless dwarves complaining about taxes and inflation and interest and all those other official terms that people tossed like a fat greasy organ out of an ogre to one another, so practically not knowing one ounce of what they really meant, but acting upon the urge to speak because words were power and time was money. So there really  _isn't_  very much to discuss; same old shit as before—business is steady, and that's just a merchant code word for  _on that thin line between_ kind of okay _and_ terribly fucked _._ And just as everyone else is preparing to stand up, a voice rises from a distant chair, "If I can raise a  _minor_ matter, Chairman—". And with that, you get this horrible metallic feeling in your stomach and you  _know,_ now, that the evening will go on for twice as long with much referring back to the minutes of earlier just as crappy meetings and that you would much rather get your skull opened and needled in by a mad scientist and it would still feel less intrusive, abhorrent and with a less bad aftermath than this shit. The man who had just said that, and is now sitting there with a smug smile of dedication to the committee, is as near what Fenris did as it made no bloody difference.

And with that, Hawke continued philosophically, "The  _boot_ stands for the little syllogism pertaining to the following logical series of events: A relatively middle class person, so basically a poor nut, earns about two sovereigns per month if he's lucky, plus allowances if you're like Aveline and you work for the city. But an  _affordable_ pair of boots, which are sort of  _okay_ for a season or two and then leak like hell when the cardboard gives out come in those kind of prices, one or two good sovereigns. But the good boots that last for years and years on end cost about seven to ten sovereigns. So a person who could afford this would have a pair of boots that would still be keeping his feet neat and dry in ten years' time, while the poor nut who can barely afford those cheap boots would spend about forty sovereigns in the same time and would still have wet feet."

Now Varric frantically deducted that the possible responses Fenris would give revolved around, "That seems reasonable,  _but—_ " or "Or you can be like me and not wear any boots", and both of them had the same dangerous potential of going on and on and on with debating something that he terribly dreaded and wished at least today not to hear, on account of  _always_ hearing it in the Merchants Guild, only that  _there_ this theory was considered a holy triumph of the system and a source of endless waterfalls of coin in their rapacious dwarven pockets.

"An interesting way to put it," Fenris said metaphysically, curling a finger over his jaw while the others supported his physical chin. Varric waited for the  _but,_ although it never came and since the illusory delay went on he did worse with not breathing than with actually hearing the metallic  _but._ He watched the elf for several seconds, deciding that this was the time it took his inebriated brain to form that tactful counterargument. Then Fenris took away the hand from his face and folded his arms as he calmly said, "I believe it is my turn?"

"Go, go, go," Hawke suggested lively. Varric thought about it and decided this made no sense and that just reinforced the issue of deeply regretting his act of buying Ferelden fucking zero-sense-making poison. Drinks like these were commonly known in Thedas as Slide Under The Moon drinks and Burn-Your-Own-Throat Shooting Spices, and in places where truth was more highly valued, Hello and Goodbye, Mr Brain Cell. And he had seen those brain cells getting seriously keelhauled round the clock tonight, but he wouldn't have expected the anomaly of those brain cells coming  _back_ to lifein the process.

And then Fenris snapped him from his remorseful calculative thoughts when he started in a serene tone, "Never have I ever carried on a conversation where one or more of the participants held their heads inside the following: barrels, boxes, trash cans, large chests, holes in cavern or building walls, holes in trees, holes in a creature's chest, ancient sarcophagi and graves, sewer entrances and once, a very large hand cannon."

The vastly comprehensive list of  _holes_ the participant in question liked to stick their heads into while still conversing lively painted a clear enough picture. Everyone of course, drank, and Hawke did too, but only because she used to do that with Carver and with their father doing the sticking into. It was a Hawke thing to energetically introduce body parts into places and objects that did not necessarily welcome you.

And even to innocently brush or sensually graze against for that matter, Fenris thought meditatively. And then he stopped thinking about it. Specifically, he  _tried_ to force the delicious memory out his mind, but it was rather enjoying itself there, terrorizing the other occupants, kicking over the furniture and smashing flower pots on the way. But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.

"Hmm," Hawke went in a vague tone that suggested trouble and terrible things to start happening. She rested her chin in her hand and with a grin she said, "Never have I ever rolled over and introduced myself."

Isabela and Anders drank urgently. If they didn't do it urgently, shocked eyes and raised eyebrows would have followed, but the only ones present on someone's face belonged to Fenris, adding slowly furrowing brows and then more quickly discharging of any sort of expression.

"Why, you?" Isabela said instantly. "You're shitting me."

"Does she  _look_  like the kind of girl who swoons over fragrant bouquets and cotton-candied romance?" Varric protested.

"No, sir," Anders commented scientifically. He gave her a playful smile. "Did that happen just half an hour ago?"

"Do I  _look_ like I'm going to tell you anything?" Hawke asked with an elusive smirk.

"Oh well, maybe it happened when you left the tavern, although the rolling over part would have been er—tricky I suppose," Anders said methodically, being the expert of random dark alley encounters and all.

"Yeah, well, I beckoned for you and you never came, y'know," Hawke said sarcastically, although the sarcasm was not very well comprehended by many at first. "I stayed in the dark alley and waited and waited and well, what could I do but finish the job myself."

"Next time use  _words,_ Beckoness," Anders said with a tone that said mock, yet with a grin that said f—

"Words are tricky and they change meaning very fast, apart from their receiver choosing what they want to understand," Hawke said in an eased and wicked tone. "A beckoning is just a beckoning and if you can't spot it right then I can only assume you are less intelligent and that I took thee for thy better."

"Oh no, not again," several frustrated voices echoed at the table.

Hawke laughed and then stated in yet again that kind of firm and eloquent tone  _just_  after some old Ferelden balderdash that carefully put you back in your seat, "I am perfectly in control of my mental and physical faculties. I invite you all to calm yourselves, please."

Of course, the general exasperation was on account of the inner alarm going— _fucking fury of Ferelden coming back to bite us_!— but there also lurked a particular exasperation in a quiet elf which was busier battling the more primitive inner alarm of— _Fuck._

Of course beside his habitual unconscious instinct of feeling like killing anything that walked on two legs, had male genitalia and even remotely looked at Hawke—and whose name was not Varric—Fenris's more rational threads of conscious processing already began reminding him the careful play of words, on the actual subject of words per se.  _Words are tricky and they change meaning very fast,_ yes, this was true, his inner editor said,  _and their receiver choses what they want to understand,_ that was also true. She also said a few hours ago upon the throwing flattering but elusive words about elves, that if you wanted to find snakes look for them in words that change their meaning. She'd never said that elves were nice. And in this bit, she'd never said that she had engaged in the nasty with the person she rolled over and introduced herself to. And then he relaxed a little, because it wasn't the first and it would not be the last time Hawke played with words to screw with her audience and sometimes he managed to catch the helpful hints too.

And when he didn't catch any hints, he would miscalculate horrifically. There was this incredibly baffling tradition of misinterpreting a lot of things at first over the years. When he invited her for the first time in his mansion and baptized the walls with Aggreggio, after again joking about  _the bet,_ and then also adding some ideas about  _battle_ stratagems of beating the snake out of the grass, she went on with a lot of misleading words about  _doing it_ and that they were  _teammates_ and they had never done, at least not with  _each other_ , and it was bound to happen  _sooner or later_ and that he was the only one she would  _share_ her experience with and that he would be a  _natural_ at it and even though he was stronger than her he wouldn't kill her in the process, and then after a lot of awkward coughing and elusive _Mhms_ and  _I see's_ he had finally suspected she was not talking about the same thing his idiotic masculine brain was quite involuntarily thinking about and shamefully picturing in some fractions of a second. And then she said she meant _dueling_  each other, so he had to contain his sigh of relief and also of very unconscious disappointment.

Then there was the time when she came back to Kirkwall and Varric spotted them on the roof and disturbed their quite direct exchange of clear words and when they came in the Blooming Rose after him, Dorian was all saucy jokes about coming back  _there,_ and being  _feisty_ which he missed, and that he never got her to actually  _kiss_  him and then something about  _strangling_ and  _bruising,_ and then her saying he had the finest and softest hands in Thedas. And only days of calm happy thoughts later he found out the naughty elf had only given her massages for her raving back problem and then only a year and half later he found out he was more or less gay. Armand of course, never bat an eye on her in that manner and he was grateful for this clarity, because again, he didn't want to accidentally become the maniacal elf who had a habit of accidentally beating up gay guys.

And ignoring the quick-witted low interrogation of Zevran in the catacombs and rushing urgently to this very night, when Alfie the Buttstabber came to her in hopes of some  _conversation_ then going out with her he very rationally interpreted as exactly what it looked like. Only that Hawke would have argued with— _It looked exactly what it looked like. I went out and a dwarf went with me. And that is all there is to it that is obvious._ And then he found out she was going for a duel.

Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy, he thought. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistible urge to commit murder, and an unconscious inferiority complex. Yippee.

So you could see how Fenris, while still having it his being to make clever use of words, also had to remind himself over and over again that Hawke was also a being who made intelligent use of such words. And more importantly, while her words seemed open to interpretation, her actions were  _not._ Which added to the more general picture now, that kisses and inappropriate groping were things with only one meaning and she had insofar been willing only to  _share_ that experience with  _him_ , and also that he would do well to stop brooding right about now.

But of course the other bit, of Anders obviously giving her quite the saucy advances, and the relying evidence that they had already had a similar discussion before about  _dark alleys,_ made him think murderous thoughts again. It didn't really matter that Hawke was clearly being sarcastic, much to his great familiarity with it. What it mattered was  _him,_ because Fenris was no fool and he could smell a liar from a mile away, and now he also developed a much clearer distinctive sense of smell for men who were really interested in Hawke. And if he happened by any chance to misunderstand and Anders turned out not to be interested, he would have still enjoyed painting his face purple because there were so many other good reasons on his list for it, that he had insofar abstained from acting upon.

And then something like an ethereal voice from the beyond came in emergency into his ears that happened to roll its  **r** 's very sharply and also regarded itself as  _ridiculously awesome,_ "Do not doubt that she will have other admirers, and while you are rivaling in your courtship with them, you must always keep a perfectly content demeanor even more so because she is already taken with you. Unless of course you want to be doomed, in which case, well, knock yourself out!"

Then another voice which he also wanted once to beat the crap out of said, "Just be yourself. It doesn't matter what you do other than that, apart from how much of  _yourself_ you're putting out of course, which is to your choosing. Rule of thumb stands—be yourself."

Carefully ignoring the fact that there were multiple voices that were not his own echoing in his head, Fenris remained calm and vigilant to the game. And to the bloody possessed mage.  _Intelligently,_ he added with his own inner voice.

Anders had the next round. He proposed with a grin, "Well then, let's be more exact. Never have I ever socialized energetically in a dark alley _tonight_."

What an idiot, choosing the wrong word to accentuate and more so, choosing the wrong kind of elusive word for doing what he meant that she might have been doing. And with that, Hawke, Fenris and then Varric very proudly drank up.

So people looked at them. And Hawke spoke for both of them with a big shrug and a smile. "Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking. We had a threesome—"

And then it lay there in the air without the confirmation that should have followed her continuing-sounding tone.

"Did you put it in the wrong person that you got that huge bruise under your eye?" Anders asked mockingly.

"Probably," Fenris said flatly, then took a sip, which sort of harrowed Varric for a second there, and then he finally continued, "If I were on my knees and the person in question was also wearing battle boots to reach my face."

"Now if you said  _stilettos,_ this would have just sounded perfect," Hawke added joyfully. And that was still the truth. Stilettos could either be the daggers or the heels, after all and it was up to the audience to interpret.

"So this is the kind of fantasies I take it we may find in your secret journal?" Anders asked, quite clearly interpreting the second meaning.

"Oh, it's not a secret," Hawke said. "It's actually quite the public and gratis written declaration." Involuntarily and unintentionally so,she added to herself.

"In that we might never actually  _find_ it or there is nothing  _sexual_  in it at all, if we do find it," Anders concluded.

Now you're getting the hang of it, kid, Fenris thought.

"Well you can keep believing what you will until you see for yourself," Hawke said cheerfully.

"Well I will have to think of a good gentlemanly excuse to enter your bedroom and hack it then," Anders went on methodically.

Sure, Hawke thought, knock yourself out. It's not in my bedroom and there is no reasonable excuse for you to get in there anyway, unless I require home-based medical care and by that time I will have burned all my journal pages away on account of completely changing my viewpoint on life from "Good is good and bad is bad and there's nothing you can do about apart from doing some good yourself and killing the bugger" to "Good is bad and bad is still just as bad and when the  _hell_ can I die already?"

So she cut out most of that inner speech and came out only with, "Sure, knock yourself out."

* * *

**And then maybe fifteen minutes later**

They more or less agreed to play a quick round of Truth or Dare. And that was dared said, because the truth was less than more really agreed.

But something needed to shift after the discussions started pouring in philosophical rants from every smart mouth with half an opinion on things. It somehow went from talking about the  _weather,_ to Ferelden and Tevinter weather again, but leaving the cooking and freezing testicles part out this time, to mud, and then to rocking horses, then to wooden practice swords and then quickly turned into a discussion about the latest abomination march of horrors incident in Agamemnon's Praising Puppet Shop from the previous week, and then  _somehow,_ why, however  _could_ it shift to a great debate about the freedom of mages, and then even worse, to the ancient forgotten knowledge of Arlathan and the equal rights of all beings to protect themselves and stand up for what they believed in. And only the last part did everyone agree on, but didn't really verbalize as such because they were distracted by the sheer thought of snapping each other's necks on account of being totally stupid. And the last part was only what Hawke, Fenris and Varric felt, but to different people.

Varric was more or less democratic on wanting to kill everyone at the table.

It was all very well going on about pure logic however, and on how the world was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, although some of them argued that this could not be known unless magic was involved because it was the grounding pillar of all science and if magic didn't exist we would all be doomed—

—but the plain fact of the matter was that Thedas was manifestly swallowing itself up and pushing its flaming nucleus inside and out of the planet's crust with raging maniacal darkspawn swooping around every few centuries eating people, because the mighty Maker of the world was like this little selfish child that built sandcastles and saw that they were ineffective because they could be torn down by water, then built snowmen and cried again because the heat would melt them down, and then the child created humans and some with superior etheric abilities that made them haunted by dread satanic snowmen apparitions who sought to demonically possess them from a faraway desert that was progressively melting them and they could take no more while the good sandcastles were really very stoic about drowning in the waters. And then the Maker simply tossed the toy away and shouted, "I gilve  _ahp_."

Then some superior magical beings  _really_ wanted to know more and since he  _gave_ them the power to do so, they paid him a visit. Unfortunately for those mages, The Maker did not consider it so much a visit as it was a full on official burglary and went piss mad and cast a curse on them, turning them into twisted reflections of their white spiritual light into dark ethereal light that totally jolted the general dictates of quasi-historical extrapolation, so smelly tainted monsters started to emerge from underground and multiply like rabbits and caused havoc upon the world. Hawke suspected that maybe this was just a huge irrational decision on account of being disturbed the first time the child boy Maker discovered what to do with his genitals and the mages coming in really upset him.

Then a few millennia later he grew into a really immoral horny teenager and haunted the dreams of a young married woman and sent her visions, and then he played the hard-to-get card with her so she sought him instead, and because he appeared like such a bad boy, she felt like any infatuated good girl that she could  _change_ him, so she convinced the hormonally-infused Maker that she would bring proof that the world was not lost and that with a bit of  _attention_ and help from him they could make it the place he wanted it to be in the first place and they would both be happy. And then that also went down with a huge thump.

Darkspawn were still crawling everywhere eating people and the Maker still had the habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.

At least that was what Hawke's viewpoint was.

And well, Anders and Merrill, though almost completely contemptuous towards each other, had paired in one respect against Hawke and Fenris from that point on. It went Team Knowledge Comes From Everywhere and Team Knowldege Comes from Mages. Or more literally, Team Raging Brain and Team Raging Butthole.

And none backed down from it, and Anders and Merrill were also sober, which meant that Hawke and Fenris were thousands of mental miles away from that long forgotten territory and also that this was worse than being in full mental capacity. They seemed to be much more eloquent and logical and persuasive when they were completely sloshed, and teamed together they really touched off the bomb.

To them, the two mages suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done. Hawke believed in this, but not in the same way they did. She had a very raw view on things and she knew poverty and sickness and death dime a dozen. She believed that something  _somewhere_ **sometimes**  could be done and it more or less swoops down upon you and you do the right thing. Or you help an individual by maybe slightly ignoring the rules and breaking the law, but if the guy was good and you didn't do anything harmful to some innocent bastard and maybe you might have even saved some lives, it was a good day and she could have a cold beer afterwards if she still had the coin in her pockets, because she used to donate a lot and almost everywhere that didn't begin with High— and The—.

But Anders and Merrill while passionately justifying their beliefs, seemed prepared to make the world the way they wanted it to be or die in the attempt. And the trouble with dying in the attempt was that you died in the attempt.

Hawke rather enjoyed times like this. They convinced her that she was  _definitely_ not mad because, if she was, then that left no word at all to describe some of the people she met.

The ancient elves were said immortal and they knew things that we do not anymore and there is no way for the elves to know things and achieve immortality again unless there was a little sacrifice and derring-do. But Fenris had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to know things and achieve immortality by not dying.

So when they reached the topic of this lost knowledge, Hawke and Fenris vigorously argued that knowledge, in all forms, is something that comes from within and acquired just as individually from personal experience, like a precious mineral hacked, as it were, from the grey strata of ignorance.

Therefore the two apparently very different mages with very different standpoints on magic, at least on the nature of blood magic, did still share the one view that they also methodically argued against Team Colorful Higher Stratas of Awareness— that knowledge could in a way, only be  _recalled_ , that there was once some kind of golden age in the very distant past when everything was known, or more importantly where  _mages_  had it all good and they  _knew_ things, and the mountains of this knowledge fitted together that one could hardly stick a knife or a head between them, and that they could probably teleport and communicate telepathically, and that they used the power of good spirits (Anders coughed and pressed on the word _good_  and shut Merrill up on that part) to further help the world and create new ways of improving life, and  _obviously_ they probably had flying carpets too because of the way the old maps were, very thorough in drawing every curve and path and river and angle it made with every mountain, and there was also some distant gravesite in the Green Dales (here Merill cut Anders and went on scientifically) where they found some sort of gleaming sandglass under an altar that was said to teleport people through the space-time continuum and if she had that, then she would know more about the ancient ways and who the elves really were, but the Tevinters kept their leash on the site and hushed it up—

Hawke and Fenris, though not perfectly in agreement about magic with one another themselves, believed that knowledge could be acquired by shouting at people, and were endeavoring to do so.

It is at this point that normal language gives up, and goes and has a drink.

And that's why a voice innocently sprung from the head of the table, and adding just a tint of crazed demonic bloodlust, gently muted everyone else and vetoed Truth or Dare or Go Home.

And it was really just fine while it lasted, until it really became terrible. And no, it was not the time Varric dared Hawke to sing, because her voice was quite perfectly-pitched and strong. It was the  _others'_ voices joining the trill that painted the catastrophe.

Varric actually was a good singer, to Fenris's surprise, although to be fair he had only heard him sing when he locked himself in his huge marbled bathroom and perhaps the walls made his voice sound a bit like too much. With no artificial echoes vibrating and bumping from one wall to another, he actually had the soft tunes of a helluva nice tenor. But the others were bad. So, so horrifically bad.

Isabela and Anders were singing at the top their voices in awful pitches and Fenris could swear someone started banging two saucepans together.

Aveline and Merrill were singing a bit softer, and Aveline was fairly  _okay_ , but Merrill had the distinct trembling  _screech_ in her voice that sometimes also was punctuated by bouts of off-the-beat coughing.

Mojo the mabari also joined in energetically in relatively pleasant baritone howls.

Fenris did not even try, and he was probably incapable of singing, but at least he was attempting to swear in time to the beat.

Of course, some dwarves started to sing too, Corff as well, although he had the look of a guy who was always ready to wince and duck down from being hit. People always had the urge to sing and clang things in the dark of night when the spirits were pouring and good judgment went down the toilet, and when all sorts of psychic nastiness took advantage of the general silent frustrated audiences. It was those rare moments in the world and every year when all races joined hands together and sang at the top of their lungs to form a uniform, strong, melodic breath that screamed our hearts beats just the same and it also beats just as one and what the hell!

Fenris understood from this that this general feeling of belonging and equality for a night meant that people clanged things into other things and shouted.

And when the song hadn't finished after ten whole minutes, he strongly considered that people were just making a raving hubbub in the well-founded uniform hope that other people would give them money to stop.

He searched his pockets. He found the little rumpled note where he made a careful list of the ingredients for that apple pie, the dosage and the exact moments when he had to put every little thing in and when to get other things out before it blew up in fountains of mashed apple, powder, honey, cinnamon, thick crumbs and the primitive flames of elven despair.

Well he could stab himself in the eye with the nail, but he would still hear the metallic and organic separate ruckuses thumping into and over one another. And if he wrapped himself up in two layers of mantels and lace curtains he would still hear it because yippee, elves had highly developed hearing. He wished elves also had a highly developed survival mechanism of slightly pinching their ears and then, much like lizards did with their tails, they would just fall off and then they would grow back in a day or two away from the raging HROOORS and ALALAHALAYAS in the calm eerie silence of his mansion where only the occasional bat or swallow would sometimes creak in and flap its wings, and now that seemed like absolute paradise in comparison.

It was just possible to make out a consensus song in there somewhere.

What though on hamely fare we dine **  
**Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that **  
**Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine **  
**A man's a man, for a' that **  
**For a' that, an' a' that **  
**Their tinsel show an' a' that **  
**The honest man, though e'er sae poor ****  
Is king o' men for a' that

And if they shut up forever they would be king of all the wiser for a' that. And if they toned down the stomping and the clanking maybe his ears wouldn't feel like they were bleeding for a' that.

But then Hawke broke the general rampant brouhaha with a solo in the most beautiful voice that soothed his ears only just a little. Very little, but it helped, because he felt the brain hemorrhage cease for a minute to listen.

Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene **  
**Her purest of crystal and brightest of green **  
**'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill **  
**Oh No 'twas something more exquisite still ****  
Oh No 'twas something more exquisite still

Yes, indeed, it there was something more exquisite still and it was right in front of him singing like a mighty angelic phoenix, for want of a better bird term.

This was an quick Ferelden add-in improv to break the redundant brain cell stomping  _an' a' that, an' a' that, an' a' that_. She raised her arm and thumped the table and looked at her companions.

Sweet vale of Avoca! How calm could I rest **  
**In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best **  
**Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease **  
**And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace **  
**And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace

And finally there like the sweet vale of Avoca, all their hearts really did resume to mingling in peace. He thanked her with his eyes. She smirked a bit and nodded with her eyelids.

But then something even more awful happened. He swore that these things just came at him.

And it started with the creative suggestion, on a dare, coming from the most surprising source. That was real gifted source was Aveline and she had just dared, and when Hawke refused, she reminded that she also had a  _punishment_ she hadn't yet used on her, that they should all go into Varric's more private quarters and whence they were there, with the Antivan Vincento also coming in to do a real nice violin bit—and Aveline and whoever else wanted to again, smash at some damn improvised drums probably—Hawke should ever so gracefully attempt to give Varric a nice dance-around. She used the word politely. She probably meant something more of a limb there before the –dance part but did not verbally made use of it and more or less batted her eyelids and her lips widened in a sort of predatory manner, sort of like saying, " _Hey-hoooh-well,_  knock yourself out!"

And when Fenris sat up and climbed the stairs up the room and tried to look for a place to sit and the large table, that bloody toad-spotted whoreson Anders lifted some of those improved drums and bumped with them against his back and very gently made him thump against the very dwarven, very rectangle corner of the table. And the pain, the pain came clawing and throbbing again and he swallowed his profane scream and it felt it as if he'd seen death and eaten it. VISHANTE KAFFAS, will he  _ever_ get a bloody break.

And then Hawke very grumpily waved this away into a final agreement, and Varric also stopped with the fatherly  _Fuck NOs._ Then Isabela innocently disappeared for two seconds and dragged her away by force. Varric was also forcefully put into a high-chair, which was actually somewhat of a middle-chair and he kept pressing his lips, furrowing his brows and swearing in Kirkwall's finest slang because the last time Hawke had been dared to do something to him of a molesting nature, he ended up puking his guts out on account of tasting that cider on her lips. One kiss was oh just fine, but a dance-around, whatever that meant, was sort of a recipe for catastrophe.

Hawke must have done something terribly bad to Aveline either in the last recent days or in a past life. Either way the karmic nastiness would balance out the universe and terrible things would still happen because clusters of high-powered dust particles were just obsessive with keeping it constant like that. A lot of havoc equaled peace in quantum physics, who knew.

 


End file.
